快猫短视频

FATHER CHRISTMAS has probably never gone 鈥渉o ho ho!鈥� in his life. More
likely, he just grunts, according to the largest ever study into the sound of
laughter.

Jo-Anne Bachorowski of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and her
colleagues asked 97 volunteers to watch various film extracts, and secretly
taped their laughter. Among the clips were the 鈥渂ring out your dead鈥� sketch from
Monty Python, and the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met
Sally. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very fun, it really is,鈥� she says.

This left the researchers with more than a thousand bursts of laughter to
analyse. 鈥淥ne of the biggest surprises was the variety of sounds that constitute
laughter,鈥� she says.

Laughter can be 鈥渧oiced鈥� or song-like鈥攕uch as giggles and
chuckles鈥攐r unvoiced, like grunts and snorts. Most of the subjects
produced a wide range of laughter types. But women produce voiced, song-like
bursts of laughter more often than men, Bachorowski found, while men are more
likely to grunt and snort.

The researchers also noted the vowel sounds in the laughter. These can be
central鈥攚ith the mouth more open鈥攁s in 鈥渢urn鈥� or 鈥渃ar鈥�, or
noncentral, as in 鈥渉e鈥� or 鈥済low鈥�. The team heard very few examples of noncentral
vowels, scuppering the idea that people often go 鈥渢ee hee鈥� or 鈥渉o ho ho鈥�. Other
laughter clich茅s failed to hold up. 鈥淪tereotypes accounted for less than
half of the laughter recorded,鈥� she says.

The subjects were all Americans, but Bachorowski says the findings may apply
to other cultures. 鈥淚 suspect that culture shapes the circumstances in which we
use laughter rather than its features.鈥�