Effects of humor on sentence memory.

Abstract

Memory for humorous and nonhumorous versions of sentences was compared. Humorous sentences were better remembered than the nonhumorous sentences on both free- and cued-recall tests and on measures of sentence recall and word recall. These effects persisted when subjects were warned that they were about to read a humorous sentence but were attenuated in incidental learning and limited to within-subjects manipulations. In incidental learning, recall was also scored as a function of subjective ratings of humor. Subjective humor affected memory in both within- and between-subjects designs. Attention, arousal, rehearsal, retrieval, and surprise explanations were explored. Results suggest that humorous material receives both increased attention and rehearsal relative to nonhumorous material. The emotion evoking qualities of a stimulus have a profound impact on memory processes. This impact has received increased attention, leading to the publication of numerous journal articles and to the recent publication of The Handbook of Emotion and Memory: Research and Theory (Christianson, 1992). However, most researchers have focused on the impact of negatively valenced emotions such as trauma and anxiety. The research presented in this article focuses on stimuli leading to the positive emotions associated with humor. Humor plays an important part in education, advertisement, entertainment, and politics. Nonetheless, basic research concerning the effects of humor on memory and attention is in short supply (see McGhee & Goldstein, 1983, for a review of research on humor). In fact, there was no coverage of the topic in Christianson' s volume. The research presented here attempts to answer some of the fundamental questions concerning the effects of humor on memory. I begin with a review of previous research, followed by a discussion of potential explanations for positive effects of humor on memory. Six experiments are then presented in which memory for humorous and nonhumorous versions of sentences was compared, and the results of these experiments are discussed in terms of the potential explanations. Most research investigating the effects of humor on learning and memory has been conducted in educational settings with less than rigorous experimental control. For example, Kaplan and Pascoe (1977) compared memory for lecture material presented with either serious or humorous examples. Kintsch and Bates (1977) compared memory for topic statements, details, and extraneous remarks and jokes presented during a lecture. Zillmann, Williams, Bryant, Boynton, and Wolf (1980)