Data_Sheet_1_Funny or Angry? Neural Correlates of Individual Differences in Aggressive Humor Processing.PDF

Humor has been a hot topic for social cognition in recent years. The present study focused on the social attribute of humor and showed different stories to participants, which were divided into four types according to the model of humor style, to explore the underlying neural mechanism of point-to-self aggressive humor and how individual differences modulated it. Measuring the degree of anger and funniness, results suggested that aggressive humor helped us in social communication by reducing the degree of anger. The neural activities showed that bilateral temporal lobes and frontal lobes played a synergistic role in the point-to-self aggressive humor processing, while point-to-self non-aggressive humor was dominant in the left-side brain. Results from the region of interest (ROI) analysis showed that the individual differences of the self-control level and the self-construal level may influence the neural processing of point-to-self aggressive humor by modulating the activated levels and patterns of the right inferior orbital frontal gyrus, the right superior temporal lobe, and the right superior frontal lobe.

近年来，幽默已成为社会认知领域的热门研究议题。本研究聚焦幽默的社会属性，向被试呈现四类依据幽默风格模型划分的不同故事，旨在探索指向自我的攻击性幽默（point-to-self aggressive humor）的潜在神经机制，以及个体差异对该机制的调控作用。研究通过测量被试的愤怒程度与滑稽感程度，结果显示攻击性幽默可通过降低愤怒程度助力社会交往。神经活动结果表明，双侧颞叶与额叶在指向自我的攻击性幽默加工中发挥协同作用，而指向自我的非攻击性幽默则以左侧脑区加工为主。感兴趣区（ROI）分析结果显示，自我控制水平与自我构念水平的个体差异，可通过调节右侧眶额下回、右侧颞上回以及右侧额上回的激活水平与模式，影响指向自我的攻击性幽默的神经加工过程。