Science Of Laughter
For my 5 minutes of science, I decided to focus on laughter. Laughter is commonly associated with the frontal lobe and other unspecified regions of the brain that control emotional, cognitive, and motor responses. Laughter unlike talking or breathing, causes the body to lose air instead of bringing it in at timed intervals, hence the praise, "Dying of Laughter." There are not a lot of studies done on laughter. It is known to be something that is common in most mammals such as primates, rats, and famously hyenas, and is thought of as primitive and mating call-like. In the social aspect of laughter, you are more likely to laugh in a group of friends than you are by yourself. This doesn't mean it is all good laughter. There are two kinds of laughter known as Posed and Real laughter. Posed laughter is known more in social situations as a sign of understanding and engagement, while real laughter, also known as "helpless" laughter, is commonly associated with the response from tickling. This brings us to the stress relief part of laughter. Tickling is one of the most stressful physical acts that can be exerted on the body by another person; laughter is the only way to cause the body to not go into complete panic mode. Robert Levenson did a study at Berkeley College that involved couples being asked stressful questions. It was found that couples who laughed more during the experiment controlled their stress levels more than the couples that did not.
The reason I chose this topic is because I am someone who laughs way more than I should and I wanted to know why. I found that I do to tend to laugh more when I'm trying to rid myself of a stressful situation. Also as a kid I would have long fits of erratic laughter where I couldn't stop, and didn't know what I was particularly laughing at. Maybe I was a very stressed 7 year old or maybe my frontal lobe was very active, either way it would being a satisfying solution.
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