Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today I've got a classic episode for you from our former host, Christian Sager. If you've ever been close with a non human animal, you may think it's obvious that they have senses of humor, even if most of what they think is funny is you know us. But we set out to learn what science has to say about it. Have you ever tried to tell a joke to an animal. I've done it before,
I talked to my dogs, whatever. But this this is brain Stuff and I'm Christian Sager. So here's the question. Can animals laugh? In some cases this might sound ridiculous. There are many different types of laughter, and generally speaking, these types fall into two broad categories complex social laughter, where you have to know the context or have a sense of humor to you know, get it and laugh
after in response to stimulation like tickling. Some animals, such as primates, seem to have a sense of humor, meaning they can respond to situations with a pant that sounds eerily similar to laughter. You can read numerous stories about Coco the gorilla allegedly making jokes in sign language and so on. Additionally, when adult animals like dolphins or ravens play pranks, they're indicating an understanding of humor. But laughter
itself seems more common than humans had originally thought. Rats have been laughing their furry little keysters off since the dawn of recorded history, but we only figured this out a few years back. It turns out rats like being tickled, and when they're tickled, they chirp at a range too high for human ears to pick up. It's around fifty kila hurts. We know this thanks to the work of Jacques pan Skep and Jeffrey Bergdorff beginning in the late
nineties at Bowling Green State University. And if we're talking about that second category of laughter, a positive vocalization associated with touch, then the comedy floodgates may have just swung open. Dr de Villa Ross has been gathering as much data as possible about the reactions various animals have to being tickled. The list of animals that make a vocal reaction when tickled include mere cats, camels, dolphins, dogs, owls, penguins, and
more So. What's the explanation, Well, according to Michael O. Wren, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience from Georgia State University. That's my alma mater. The case may be simple, at least when applied to mammals. It's just a pleasant feeling evoked by touching. Laughter. It seems may well be millions of years old and existed before human beings. If you think about it, we're sort of late to the joke. And to be fair, most scientists aren't calling this straight
out laughter. Instead, they're suggesting that these positive vocalizations, or, as Dr de Villa Ross writes, expressions of joy. And when we ask whether laughter is a sign of intelligence, Dr pank Step notes that intelligence isn't a requirement for laughter. Instead, he suggests maybe we should look at it from another direction. Perhaps play in any species can increase social intelligence. As research continues, we're learning more and more about animals, laughter,
and keep. Today's episode was written by Ben Bollin and produced by Tyler Clang. To hear more from Ben, check out his very funny podcast Ridiculous History, and for more on this and lots of other topics, visit how stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.