From Andrew Smyth
You report Igor Suslov saying that “humour is the brain’s way of dealing with errors” (24 November 2007, p 6). The “false alarm” theory of laughter proposed by V. S. Ramachandran in 1996 suggests that people laugh to communicate that some misperceived event is harmless: so when an object misidentified as a snake is recognised as a stick, people laugh.
This would explain why people laugh more in the presence of others. It also explains why most jokes involve misdirection, then surprise and some unexpected outcome that causes a feeling of superiority in the listener.
Ramachandran, like Suslov, speculates that humour also developed other functions, such as promoting social cohesion.
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