Reiss' team studied the response of 10 women and 10 men to 70 black-and-while cartoons, asking them to rate the jokes for how funny they were. While the volunteers were looking at the cartoons their brains were being studied with an MRI to determine what parts of the brains were responding.
In large part, men and women had similar responses to humor, using parts of the brain responsible for the structure and context of language and for understanding juxtaposition.
In women, however, some areas were more active than in men. These included the left prefrontal cortex, which the researchers said suggests a greater emphasis on language and executive processing, and the nucleus accumbens, or NAcc, which is part of the reward center.
Reiss said he was surprised at the NAcc finding. The researchers theorized that because women were being more analytical they weren't necessarily expecting the cartoons to be as funny as did the men.
Then, when they saw the punch line, the reward center lit up, indicating something pleasant and unexpected.
Arnie Cann, a psychology professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, commented: "Given the findings in the current study, that women appear to use more executive functions, it could be that they are more engaged in scrutinizing the humor to decide if it fits their views on what is acceptable humor. Once they decide the humor is OK, they could be experiencing a relief-like response."
That would fit in with the finding that women experience more reward from the joke, said Cann, who was not part of Reiss' research team.
Reiss' research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
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