Provine's well-written, often amusing and always fascinating expose' presents laughter in all its complexity and with all its contradictions.
A model of constructive scientific thinking....findings were revolutionary.
Pulls off the trick of transforming the commonplace business of laughter into something strange and new.
Laughter, the "ancient vocal relic" that "predates both humor and speech," proves to be a fascinating topic.
Not an unmitigated hoot, but it is certainly worthwhile.
Enjoyable fairground tour of the science of the laugh.
A pioneering investigation into the hows and whys of what it means to chuckle.
Nice lightness of touch...packed with fascinating quirkey facts.
This crisply written, often hilarious book....might make you giggly for days.
— (London)
It's fascinating-enjoy.
—(Phoenix)
Scanning brains and eavesdropping on chimps, researchers are figuring out why we chuckle, guffaw and crack up.
Some seriously funny research.
It's fun to read Provine's observations about inappropriate laughter, why it's impossible to tickle oneself, and what might have constituted a joke in the eyes of a Neanderthal.
Provine's appealingly unembarassed goofy curiosity ("While tickling chimpanzees in an attempt to stimulate laughter, I made two related discoveries ...") allows him to stage his own geekiness with gusto: "Panksepp knows how to pleasure his rats," he tells us admiringly about another scientist's tickle research. Like the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who saw laughter as the expression of a sudden glory, Provine sees laughter as our song, our version of birdsong, hower sonically impoverished, and maybe his most eloquent experiment involved acoustically removing the laugh notes themselves from a recoded laugh. What was left was a long, unvoiced, breathy aspiration: a sigh.
Laughter isn't about jokes, it's about relationships. That's why it's no fun to laugh alone.
From a ten-year ethnological study of laughter that retains some levity, Provine (psychology and neuroscience, U. of Maryland- Baltimore) proceeds from philosophical, theoretical, and natural history perspectives to paleohumorology, brain physiology, abnormal and healthy laughter. Includes tips for increasing laughter. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Provine's well-written, often amusing, and always fascinating exposé presents laughter in all its complexity and with all its contradictions.
—Scientific American
