Humor comprehension, humor production, and insight: An exploratory study

Abstract

The relation between humor comprehension and humor production was examined. Unlike earlier studies that used comprehension tasks requiring a productive component, here participants simply decided whether cartoons were matched or mismatched to presented “latent content” (i.e., the implied meaning of the cartoon). To test humor production, the same participants devised humorous captions for photographs, which judges reliably rated on funniness. Performance on the two tasks showed a significant positive correlation. Relations between response time, confidence, and funniness ratings in the comprehension task were consistent with an “insight” view of humor comprehension: correct responses were made more quickly, and matched latent content trials were identified faster and were rated as funnier than mismatched trials. In the humor production task, judged funniness showed a reliable (but rather small) positive correlation with response time, offering little support for an “insight” view of humor production. Limitations of the study and possibilities for future research on humor production, modeled on creativity research, are discussed.