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According to this theory, humor has a purely biological origin, while its social functions arose later. This conclusion corresponds to the known fact that monkeys (as pointed out by Charles Darwin) and even rats (as found recently) possess laughter like qualities when playing, drawing conclusions to some potential form of humor. [62]
Laughter is a pleasant physical reaction and emotion consisting usually of rhythmical, usually audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can rise from such activities as being tickled, [1] or from humorous stories, imagery, videos or ...
The production of laughter involves two primary brain pathways, one for involuntary and one for voluntary laughter (i.e., Duchenne and non-Duchenne laughter). Involuntary laughter is usually emotionally driven and includes key emotional brain areas such as the amygdala, thalamic areas, and the brainstem. Voluntary laughter, however, begins in ...
Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organization, from kingdoms to species, and individual organisms and molecules, such as DNA and proteins. The similarities between all present day organisms imply a common ancestor from which all known species, living and extinct , have diverged.
Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.
The study of the evolution of emotions dates back to the 19th century. Evolution and natural selection has been applied to the study of human communication , mainly by Charles Darwin in his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals . [ 1 ]
Interest in the relationship between Darwinism and the study of literature began in the nineteenth century, for example, among Italian literary critics. [2] For example, Ugo Angelo Canello argued that literature was the history of the human psyche, and as such, played a part in the struggle for natural selection, while Francesco de Sanctis argued that Emile Zola "brought the concepts of ...
Laughter in animals other than humans describes animal behavior which resembles human laughter. Several non-human species demonstrate vocalizations that sound similar to human laughter. A significant proportion of these species are mammals, which suggests that the neurological functions occurred early in the process of mammalian evolution. [ 1 ]