Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 11-23-2018 10:00 AM The Cognitive Psychology of Humour in Written Puns James Boylan The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Katz, Albert The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Psychology A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © James Boylan 2018 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Cognition and Perception Commons, and the Cognitive Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Boylan, James, "The Cognitive Psychology of Humour in Written Puns" (2018). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 5947. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/5947 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract The primary purpose of this dissertation was to investigate how humour from written puns is produced. Prior models have emphasized that novel or surprising incongruities should be important for humour appreciation (Suls, 1972; Topolinski, 2014). In study 1, a new approach to operationalizing incongruity as semantic dissimilarity was developed and tested using Latent Semantic Analysis (Landauer, Foltz & Laham, 1998). “Latent semantic incongruity” was associated with humour ratings, but only for puns with low ratings of familiarity from a prior occasion or for those with a low level of aggressive content. Overall, there was also an unexpected strong positive association between familiarity and humour ratings. Study 2 demonstrated that humour ratings for puns decreases with repeated exposures. Changes in humour with repetition were dependent on latent semantic incongruity, the duration of time spent comprehending the pun and providing humour ratings, and on how humour was measured. Study 3 investigated whether “elaboration” on the two implied concepts in each pun was associated with humour (as predicted by Wyer & Collins, 1992). Elaboration quantity (the number of associated words that participants could comfortably list) and elaboration duration (the duration of time participants spent on the elaboration task) were positively associated with humour ratings, but only for familiar puns. Study 3 also found that participants who were assigned to focus on semantic dissimilarities found the puns to be more humorous, while participants who focused on semantic similarity produced a greater quantity of elaboration. In summary, fluent comprehension of incongruity was important for humour from unfamiliar puns, whereas elaboration on the implied concepts in puns was important to humour appreciation for puns that were familiar from a prior occasion. Keywords Humour appreciation, humor, semantic distance, incongruity-resolution, comprehension- elaboration, dissimilarity, similarity, familiarity, repetition, fluency ii Co-Authorship Statement All projects in this dissertation were conducted under the supervision of Dr. Albert Katz. The written material in this thesis is my own work. Albert Katz provided input and assistance with editing and revision of the content. Data from study 1 was initially collected as a part of a collaborative project with Dr. Rod Martin. Dr. Martin provided preliminary input and edits for study 1 and also developed and hosted the internet-based survey platform that was used to collect data for all reported studies. iii Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere and enthusiastic gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Albert Katz. His generous support, reliability, encouragement, and commitment to his students had a tremendous impact on my ability to succeed. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with him. Albert has been consistently kind, positive, and understanding. Moving forward, I hope that I will be able to live and work following his example. I would like to thank my dissertation committee including Dr. Rod Martin for both his technical expertise, input, and assistance in shaping the early phases of this project. Thanks also to Dr. Nick Kuiper and Dr. Debra Jared for their input as committee members and for their thorough and thoughtful review of this dissertation. I would also like to thank my lab mates and colleagues in the cognitive psychology graduate program at Western University. My thanks to Hamad Alazary, Nick Reid, Jason Perry, Alex Taikh, and everyone else from our program. I am grateful for the friendly and positive work culture we developed together. Thank you for your insights, comments, and support. On a personal level, I would like to thank my sister, Amy Boylan and longtime friends who are like family; including Rick Coupland, Sarah Cazakoff, Scott Davison, and Demetrius Michael. Your encouragement and support really kept me going. I would like to thank my mother, Susan Boylan, whose strength, patience and grace taught me not only to survive, but to thrive despite life’s adversities. You are a reliable role model who I am lucky to have in my life. I would also like to express my gratitude to my late father, John Boylan, for his unconditional love, reliability and consistency. Thank you for teaching me to stick with things even when they are hard, to love learning new things, to be there for people you care about, and to love life. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Co-Authorship Statement................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... xi List of Figures ................................................................................................................... xii List of Appendices ........................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 1 General Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Written Puns............................................................................................................ 2 1.1.1 Definition .................................................................................................... 2 1.1.2 Polysemy Mechanisms in Puns ................................................................... 3 1.1.3 Ideal Experimental Items ............................................................................ 4 1.1.4 Puns are Ubiquitous .................................................................................... 4 1.2 Incongruity Based Theories of Humour ................................................................. 5 1.2.1 Incongruity-Resolution Theory ................................................................... 5 1.2.2 Process Fluency Account ............................................................................ 8 1.2.3 Comprehension-Elaboration Theory ........................................................... 8 1.3 Potential Moderators of Semantic Incongruity ..................................................... 10 1.3.1 Familiarity ................................................................................................. 10 1.3.2 Aggression ................................................................................................ 11 1.4 Investigation of Puns in Cognitive Psychology .................................................... 13 1.4.1 Operationalization of Incongruity as Semantic Dissimilarity ................... 15 1.4.2 Overview ................................................................................................... 16 v Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 18 2 Study 1: Latent Semantic Incongruity and Humour Appreciation............................... 18 2.1 Polysemy Problem ................................................................................................ 19 2.2 Dictionary Definition Approach ........................................................................... 20 2.3 Hypotheses ............................................................................................................ 22 2.3.1 Latent Semantic Incongruity ..................................................................... 22 2.3.2 Familiarity ................................................................................................. 22 2.3.3 Aggressive Content ................................................................................... 22 2.3.4 Pun Identification ...................................................................................... 22 2.4 Method .................................................................................................................. 23 2.4.1 Participants ...............................................................................................