The ontogeny of human laughter |
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| Authors: | Mariska E Kret Dianne Venneker Bronwen Evans Iliana Samara Disa Sauter |
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| Institution: | 1. Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands ; 2. Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), Leiden University, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands ; 3. Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, Chandler House, 2 Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF, UK ; 4. Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 1018 WS, The Netherlands |
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| Abstract: | Human adult laughter is characterized by vocal bursts produced predominantly during exhalation, yet apes laugh while exhaling and inhaling. The current study investigated our hypothesis that laughter of human infants changes from laughter similar to that of apes to increasingly resemble that of human adults over early development. We further hypothesized that the more laughter is produced on the exhale, the more positively it is perceived. To test these predictions, novice (n = 102) and expert (phonetician, n = 15) listeners judged the extent to which human infant laughter (n = 44) was produced during inhalation or exhalation, and the extent to which they found the laughs pleasant and contagious. Support was found for both hypotheses, which were further confirmed in two pre-registered replication studies. Likely through social learning and the anatomical development of the vocal production system, infants'' initial ape-like laughter transforms into laughter similar to that of adult humans over the course of ontogeny. |
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| Keywords: | laughter vocalization positive emotion affect ontogeny primates |
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