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Did you ever wonder what occurs inside your body when something funny happens? What is this thing we have in our brains that makes us say “ha-ha” when someone slips on a banana?
你有沒有想過當一些有趣的事情發生的時候，你身體內部會發生怎樣的變化呢？當我們看到有人踩到香蕉皮摔倒會“哈哈”大笑，那到底是什么讓我們做出這樣的反應呢？
One way to find out is to watch the brain laugh. That’s what Dartmouth neuroscientist William Kelley did. He and his team had a number of volunteers watch an episode of Seinfeld while being monitored by an MRI–that’s a machine that allows researchers to see which parts of the brain are active at any given time. They then synchronized the MRI data with the laugh track to see how the brain changes when it’s registering something funny. There’s no one “funny center” in the brain–but the findings were pretty suggestive.
找出答案的方法之一就是觀察大腦。達特茅斯神經學家威廉•凱利就做了這樣的實驗。他讓許多志愿者觀看了一集“宋飛正傳”，同時監測他們的核磁共振成像。這樣研究人員就能看到任一特定時段大腦的哪個部分是活躍的。然后研究遠讓磁共振數據與笑的軌跡同步，觀察當有趣的事情發生時大腦的變化。大腦內沒有“滑稽中心”這樣一個地方——但結果很有啟發。
When subjects were looking at something funny, the two regions in their left hemispheres lit up. From previous studies these regions are known to be associated with resolving ambiguity. Is there something in “getting it” that’s related to the process by which we work with unclear information until we suddenly see the pattern in it?
當注意到有趣的事情時，左大腦半球的兩個區域就會興奮。從前面的研究中我們得知，這些區域是與解決歧義有關的。明白滑稽事情與我們處理不了解的信息過程有關系嗎？
A couple seconds later two other brain regions became active, called the insula and the amygdala. The insula is associated with emotion, so it seems likely that this is the brain feeling good when it gets the joke–the “ha-ha” response.
幾秒鐘后，其它兩個區域就會變活躍，這兩個區域叫腦島和扁桃腺。腦島與情感有關，因此很有可能是大腦接收到笑話時感覺很好，然后做出“哈哈“大笑的反應。
The amygdala is associated with memory formation. As the researchers point out, while you may not be able to remember every plot detail in a Seinfeld episode, you can probably remember the jokes. Humor stays with us, forming a lasting memory. Get it?
扁桃腺與記憶的形成有關，正如研究人員指出，盡管你不能記住”宋飛記“的每一個情節，但能記住其中的笑話。幽默能夠保持形成一個長久的記憶。明白了嗎？
