Posted on 07/11/2007 7:12:08 PM PDT by indcons
ST. LOUIS -- It's no laughing matter: a new study suggests older adults have a harder time getting jokes as they age. The research indicates that because older adults may have greater difficulty with cognitive flexibility, abstract reasoning and short-term memory, they also have greater difficulty with tests of humor comprehension.
Researchers at Washington University tested about 40 healthy adults over age 65 and 40 undergraduate students with exercises in which they had to complete jokes and stories. Participants also had to choose the correct punch line for verbal jokes and select the funny ending to series of cartoon panels.
Findings were published earlier this month in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.
The research conducted by graduate student Wingyun Mak and psychology professor Brian Carpenter showed that the younger adults did 6 percent better on the verbal jokes and 14 percent better on the comic portion than did older participants, Mak said.
Researchers used a verbal joke test developed in 1983 and used in other humor studies. Mak added a new element, though, by showing participants cartoons from the Ferd'nand comic strip, and asking them to choose between four panels to locate the funny ending. Three of the choices for each cartoon were the wrong ones, created by an artist for the study.
"This wasn't a study about what people find funny. It was a study about whether they get what's supposed to be funny," Carpenter said.
"There are basic cognitive mechanisms to understanding what's going on in a joke. Older adults, because they may have deficits in some of those cognitive areas, may have a harder time understanding what a joke is about."
I laughed when I saw it was the Seattle PI.
Well this explains a lot about AARP memberships.
Naw, it’s just because we probably already heard it.
>>>>This entire study is a joke.
But who was the joke on? They get grant money for this.
I dont get it.
Like many other things, we just become more selective as we age. So things that seem knee-slappingly funny to a youngster just don’t seem that funny to someone who has lived and experienced a lot more. Takes a lot more to get our attention.
Tell that to the late great George Burns.
The sixth one ducks!
I would say that the entire study is suspect. Much of what makes jokes funny changes with time, and is part of a shared experience. An 80-year old woman likely has not seen some of the things that cause a 20-year old youth to laugh.
Dude! Not funny!
Hmm...and all along I thought I had just outgrown bathroom humor and body part jokes, but instead it’s just that I’ve gotten old....
*sigh*
susie
Now THAT’S funny! hehehe
susie
who's there?
ahhhh...ummmm....
Lot's of old farts on FR, apparently.
Or the great Henny Youngman, the king of the one-liners, who never met a joke he didn’t steal.
One word. Rodney Dangerfield.
My funny bone is all wore out.
Now, I just don't know why.
Hmmm, since most DemonCrapts have no sense of humor, does that mean they never mentally reached the age of 8 when one normally develops a sense of humor or that they are approaching senility well in advance of their chronological ages?
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