Laughter: A Scientific Investigation

It was a gift to my son so I really haven't read it, but he is always laughing when he reads it!

This book has a lot of new ideas and some very interesting facts. Did you know babies start to laugh around 3 1/2 to 4 months old? This is also when they’re able to be tickled or shortly after that. Different kinds of laughter are discussed. It’s interesting that a deadly plant in Sardinia gave us the word sardonic as in sardonic laughter. Plus I always enjoy reading about lobotomy. That was such a horrible time in medical history. Learn what it teaches us about laughter. Also interesting that quadriplegics cannot cough or laugh. A very interesting book. I highly recommend it

It's a REALLY informative book; if you're doin' a paper or someth'n, but if you're try'n to learn to be funny, like I am, it's not really helpful - interesting, but not what I was looking for.

This is the best book I've read providing scientific perspectives on laughter and tickling. An empirical eye, a scientists facility with observation and experimentation, and a broad understanding of social sciences, neuroscience, and evolution make this the most comprehensive and best substantiated book on laughter and tickling available. If these are topics near and dear and fascinating, you won't be disappointed with insights, discoveries, inspired, titillated and intrigued by new paths to consider and for researchers to further explore.

Bought for a class, has some very interesting facts in here.

I was enrolled in Laughter & Humor, a course taught at UMBC by Robert R. Provine (author of the book) and I dropped the class after only two-weeks of enrollment. The book is written like a textbook but is structured in a novel format. The chapters are very short, but the amount of detail within one paragraph makes it nearly impossible to know what to study. When discussing the first exam, Provine suggested that we just read and analyze every sentence from Chapters One thru Three. This book is no laughing matter!

The results presented are really interesting and the most important: they're not guesses. A set of scientific conclusions, based on scientific methods, is presented. Great work.

I thought it might be funny---wrong!

I have a lot of books about comedy and humour. Most of these books are written by people who know how to be funny themselves, but they tend to be full of anecdotes and examples, rather than hard data. This book provides an introduction into the science of what makes people laugh. It's an interesting book, and anyone who is serious and methodical about making people laugh should read it.

Die wohl erste ernsthaft wissenschaftliche Erklärung über die Entstehung des Lachens. Sehr unterhaltsam und gar nicht trocken geschrieben. Bitte nicht vom Umschlagfoto abschrecken lassen!

There are some very interesting insights. It's mainly looking at it from the perspective that laughter is muscle activity. A little about laughter in social situations. I was hoping for something about the neurological effects of laughter, but there wasn't anything. Still, an interesting overview. A little dated now.

The unique attempt of its kind on such a taken for granted aspect of laughter

Great and funny!