An ERP Study Of The Chinese Verbal Humor

This study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore how Chinese native speakers, with different levels of sense of humor, processed jokes with unexpected endings.It aimed to find out whether the level of sense of humor affected the processing mechanism and whether Chinese native speakers with a high level of sense of humor interpreted the jokes differently from those with a low level of sense of humor.Participants in this study were divided into two groups. Their level of sense of humor was surveyed via the Multi-dimensional Questionnaire of sense of humor. 22 Chinese native speakers who were at the high level of sense of humor were regarded as good comprehenders while the other 22 Chinese native speakers who were at the low level of sense of humor, poor comprehenders. Experimental sentences included 30 jokes, 30 non-jokes and 60 fillers. Each sentence was followed by a True/False comprehension question to check whether the meaning of the sentence was understood by the participants.As to the behavioral results, good comprehenders outperformed the poor comprehenders in both accuracy and reaction time. With regard to the ERP data, when processing jokes, the good comprehenders demonstrated less fronto marginal negative ERPs in the N400 interval (300-450 post onset) and obvious centro-posterio positive ERPs in the P600 interval (500-800 post onset) which indicated frame-shifting and re-analysis of the sentence. While processing jokes with unexpected endings, the poor comprehenders revealed no reliable ERP effects in the N400 interval but only revealed ERP effects in the P600 interval with no interaction with the corresponding regions of the brain.In conclusion, good comprehenders and poor comprehenders showed distinguishable electrophysiological reactions when processing jokes with unexpected endings. Compared with the poor comprehenders, the good comprehenders demonstrated richer ERP effects.