Do Animals Have a Sense of Humor?

Hey, please take a second and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Thanks a lot. Hey, welcome to Science Stuff, good production, enuff iHeartRadio. I'm hor hit Cham and today we are asking whether animals are funny. Well, we know they can be funny to us, but are they in on the joke?

Yeah, my name is Mark Beckoff. I'm a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado and Boulder, and I'm interested in the general field of cognitive ethology, which is a study of animal minds, their thoughts, their feelings. You know, what's in them? How do they work? What do they know? What do they feel?

Now, as I mentioned, there hasn't been a lot of science looking at humor in animals, but doctor Beckoff's fifty plus years studying animals tells them they surely must. Well, today we're interested in one particular coudient ability, which is humor and understanding humor and having a sense of humor. So we'll just open with a straight question, which is do you think animals have a sense of humor?

You know, I think about it a lot. I think they do. In fact, I feel sure they have their own sort of species typical sense of humor, But like anything else, it's hard to know. I would say I'm sure they do, but we haven't quite done the studies that would show that.

According to doctor Beckoff, a lot of people who own pets or spend a lot of time observing animals would say animals have a sense of humor, but so far this is mostly anecdotal. For instance, here are some examples of when doctor Becoff's dogs act that kind of funny.

My dog Jethrow, I have some examples from him and other dogs with whom I lived. So one example was he used to run around when there were people there and maybe he wasn't getting the attention that he wanted. Oh you're not paying attention to me, run around shaking his rope or a towel or something in this and then stop and look to see if people were saying, Oh, isn't he cute or isn't that me?

You know, it's a.

Tension getting that way, I see, playing keep away. I mean, my dogs would do this all the time, run up with an object, sometimes a rope, you know, play tug a war, and the minute I would reach for the rope, they would run away and turn around to make sure that I'm looking at them.

I see.

So another example when I had two dogs defeating next to one another, and the dog who ate faster would have an empty bowlt and he would run to the front door bark, and then when the other dog came to see who was at the front door, and there wasn't anyone there. The first dog would go back and steal his food.

You know, it's like there's some evidence there that the animal is aware that you have expectations about what's going to happen, and then the dog does something to subvert those expectations or kind of play with your expectations about what should happen.

Absolutely, that's exactly right.

So this is the first clue that maybe animals do have a sense of humor. Psychologists think that humor, at least in humans, is based on the idea of having expectations about a situation and then having something break those expectations. It also has to do with having theory of mind, meaning having a sense of what other individuals are thinking and what they expect to happen. We know animals have

Well, I mean, in one sense, just because you can't validate it. I can't say, well, you're trying to humor me or my friends.

I see.

So you're saying it's hard to validate because you can't ask the ad animal, did you do that because you think it was funny?

Yeah?

Yeah. In other words, part of having a sense of humor is being funny on purpose. For example, you might say or do something that other people find funny, but that doesn't mean necessarily that you have a sense of humor. You might be doing it by accident, and it's kind of hard to ask animals about their intentions. Now, you might be thinking, what if we see an animal laughing at something, wouldn't that mean they have a sense of humor? Is there any evidence that animals laugh?

Yeah, there's been a lot of research on rodents rats who produce a vocalization that when you use a sonogram to look at sort of the components of the vocalization, it looks like human laughter. And there's some evidence that some great apes might laugh. Oh really, there's laughing hyaenas. You know, people have talked about laughing hyaenas.

So there's vocalization, but is there evidence that it's a response to a subversion of expectation or is it just a vocalization that could mean something else.

I don't think anybody's looked at that. That would be a really interesting study.

I guess such a study as no laughing matter. Okay, joking aside. This did make me wonder if it would be possible to design an experiment that should you whether animals have a sense of humor or not. What would it take to do such an experiment, Like if you had to try to figure out if dogs have a sense of humor, what would that experiment look like? And I gave you ten million.

Dollars, I would take the money and run.

Now that's funny, doctor Beckoff, I know that would be my sense of humor.

I mean, you really have to look at animals, but set it up to see whether, say, do they do things out of context that could be surprising with the intention of attracting other animals because they think what you're doing is interesting.

For example, like if you see a dog severting the expectation of another dog for their pleasure for play, right.

Or making the other individual inquisitive, you know, having them really go God, you know what's going on here?

As it turns out, We're going to talk to another scientist in the next segment that was involved in a study that did just this experiment, So stick around for that. But first I wanted to ask doctor Beckoff, why would it make sense for animals to develop a sense of humor at all? What's the point of being funny? Why do you think humor has evolved in us and potentially going further back in other animals.

Well, I think it's enjoyable. It could be very positive, and it's fun to laugh. Laughing is good, smiling's good. It could be to alleviate a situation that could get nasty, to wait a pass time. So I may have seen this with wild wolves and dogs or free ranging dogs and coyotes and foxes who used to live in my neighborhood when I lived in the mountains. They just sometimes do something that it doesn't make any sense. The only tenable explanation is they're trying to humor another animal. They're

I see it.

Because they're really important for forming and maintaining groups.

We know it has a social use. Humor has a social use in groups. So it would be our expectation that animals probably have a sense of humor. Yeah, which means it would be funny. If they didn't, would be funny, it would be odd. Okay, we're now going to get to the first ever scientific result that shows that non human animals can have a sense of humor. When we come back, we're going to talk to one of the scientists involved in this study, which looked at a form

Welcome.

Can you please tellus who you are and what do you do.

Yeah, So, I'm a cognitive biologist and I'm currently working at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. So I'm basically studying intelligence and emotions in animals, specifically great apes.

Doctor Lahmer and her colleagues doctor Sasha Winkler, Philrico Rossano, and Erica Cartmeil looked at the behavior of four different great aid species to see if they showed signs they had a sense of humor. Now, as we talked about before, it's kind of hard to ask an animal to tell you something funny, or to tell them a joke and see if they laugh. So doctor Lahmer and her colleagues looked at a behavior related to humor called playful teasing. What does that mean?

Playful teasing so, for example, often and withdrawal in children. So basically, when a child actually offers you an object and the mother, for example, is reaching for it, but in the second as the mother actually reaches for it, this child draws the object back and laughs and looks at the mother. Yeah, and this can happened repeatedly, right, So, playful teasing is basically when you tease someone for fun.

You might poke at them playfully or offer them something they want and then yank it away at the last second. It's playful behavior, but it shows a certain sense of humor.

So playful teasing requires similar cognitive processes.

What did you mean by that? What cognitive abilities.

That you anticipate others responses, like as I mentioned with the offer and withdrawal. Actually, there is quite a lot of things going on in the brain during that because in the moment that the child actually presents the object, it knows that the mother will reach for it, so it will kind of foresee the action right that the mother will reach for it. And it knows also in this moment that when I draw it back, I will

So playful teasing is a form of humor because it requires you to know that the other individual is expecting something, and it also requires you to know what it's expected.

Also understanding social norms, so I need to know what is allowed what is not allowed. I mean children, for example, tis a lot by actually doing things that are not.

Allowed, right, and they find that funny.

Yes, children usually.

Laugh by doing things that are not allowed, like, for example, reaching towards a hot stove even though they know that it's not allowed, but just reaching into that direction, checking the mother's face, and then quickly drawing the hand back, you know, and doing that repeatedly kind of in a provocatis way.

I have to sort of think about what's going to happen in the future, and I also have to put myself in the mindset of the other person or the other individual.

Yeah, so this is called gury of mind.

And you said, we see this in pre verbal infants, meaning like really really young kids.

Yes, it starts at the age of eight months already.

Oh, I see, at eight months, you're already a pain in the bud.

Yeah. And to some extent, yes, at.

Eight months you're already spressing out your mother on purpose. In other words, you can think of playful teasing as joking around. I see it's a Q and I engaged in an interaction and we both find it funny, or only one of us find it funny.

I mean, it can go both ways, right.

It can be teazing that is more on the provocative side, which just one party finds funny and interesting while the other party is really annoyed. But oftentimes this also can lead to mutual enjoyment as well.

Uh huh, And doctor Lahmer argues this joking around has a purpose.

Yeah, this also brings you actually to the function of teasing, which is actually that there's mutual enjoyment and the social bonds are strengthened, so teazing is a form to basic Kelly strengthen their relationship.

And so doctor Lahmer and her colleagues try to see if you could find playful teasing in a four species of great apes, warnables, rangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees.

So we basicallyly set out to find instances of teasing in videos. Actually, so we were basically looking through a bunch of videos to find events that were basically neither aggression nor play, but something in between.

According to doctor Lammer, scientists had studied teasing before, where one animal pokes at another animal as a form of aggression or bullying, and they had also studied playfulness before, which is when two animals played together, But playful teasing is something different.

So researchers, for example, they were studying agonistic forms of cheesing like harassment or bullying, but never.

The playful side of teasing.

The playful side was kind of usually studied to as play, but playful teas is not play.

It's a different behavior.

So it's kind of in the gray zone between play and aggression. That's why we really put a lot of effort in developing a coding scheme that would actually show exactly what playful teasing is. And we developed certain criterias to define playful teasing.

What the third lumber is saying is that to study the videos of the four species of apes, she and her colleagues came up with a checklist or a list of criteria of what counts as playful teasing or joking around. So then you made a definition of playful teasing. What was in that definition, like, what was the criteria?

So the criteria of playful teasing is that the teasing is actually one sided, so as a metrical so from one individual towards the other. That it has playful elements but also provocative in elements. One important aspect is also that after the teasing action is basically performed, that the actor is actually usually looking towards the target, so they are interested in the reaction of the other, really interested

They also do elaboration of behavior.

That means that they show different forms of behavior, so the behavior is also very flexible.

I see, like if the other individual doesn't react, they'll try it again in a different way.

Yes, exactly so.

And oftentimes there's even they might start with a poke, then it might become a hit. If that doesn't lead to anything, they might even then jump.

On the individual.

So sometimes we could also observe instances like.

This, I see, I feel like you're almost asking, can animals be annoying on purpose?

Yeah?

I mean there is definitely an annoying component to it.

Yes, being funny can be annoying sometimes if you're interested in seeing what this humorous, playful teasing behavior actually looks like. Doctor Lahmer has posted clips of these videos on her YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash doctor Isabel Lammer.

Of course, we don't know about the internal world right, about the emotions that they feel while they do that, But this is all stuff for future work to look into that. But for that you would also meet other methods. So this was just the initial study to really show that our closest relatives also do show forms of humor, because before no one was actually speaking about humor in animals, at least not from a science perspective, right, So.

Doctor Lamber and her colleagues did this study, and now the question is what did they find do apes display a sense of humor or playful teasing? When we come back, I'll ask doctor Lammer what they found and what does all means about whether animals have a sense of humor? In other words, what's the puchline? So to stay with us, we'll be right back. Hey, welcome back. We're talking about whether animals have a sense of humor or whether it's

We found that all four species of great apes playfully teased, So in the bonobos, in the chimpanzees and the gorillas and the orangutans, they all showed similar forms of teasing. So we found eighteen different teasing behaviors, and all of those behaviors were provocative. They were intentional, involved, often playful. Elements were asymmetric, and when they did a teasing action that they actually also checked, you know, how the target was reacting.

Yes, the researchers found that apes do joke around, and they saw one of the total signs that they are joking around, which is that when one animal would tease another, they would look back and check to see how the other animal reacted, as if they were saying, huh, huh, what do you think is that funny? The researchers also found that this behave we're usually happened during particular moments in the apes' lives.

What we also found is that playful teasing, similar to teasing and infants, also occurs during relaxed contexts.

What does that mean that they usually.

Do it when they are, for example, resting or sleeping and the group is basically quite calm nice?

Then is actually the time usually when you can observe behaviors.

Like this interesting? Does that tell you that they do it out of boredom maybe, or some form of boredom.

Yeah. I mean even Shane Goodle already described in one of her books when she studied the Gombat chimpanzees that adult chimpanzees were basically resting and juveniles were then playfully jumping on them while the others were resting, you know, and from behind. So I mean this is apparently a thing eventually.

Yeah, And that's definitely a thing in my house when my kids were younger, it was hard to get some rest, yeah.

Yeah, in general, yeah, yeah, And it often also happens then for example, two individuals are engaged in a certain behavior. For example, two apes are booming each other and the teaser is actually then disturbing. This is also similar to teasing and infants, right, because the mother might read a book, right, and in a moment, the child, for example, puts the hand.

In the book. Yeah, and does that repeatedly, you know, to tindle.

I mean that's part of the fun, yeah, yeah, to interrupt somebody while they're doing something. Yeah.

And apes also had stealing, for example, of objects, and this was not just like I steal something and then use it myself, but this was actually for example, one ape was using a tool for expecting food for example, and the other, for example, was then actually taking.

The tool away, like stealing the tool.

But then immediately let go of it and looking at the target basically a guy. So it's basically stealing without needing the object itself and without using it afterwards by myself, but just for it to see the reaction.

Yeah, amazing. Doctor Lamber and her colleagues observe eighteen different kinds of playful teasing in apes, and to be honest, some of these do sound hilarious.

I mean the top five were poking of course, hitting a hindering movement when they would actually for.

Example, one ape was going by and the other would quickly catch the foot and pull on it. Yeah.

Yeah, so we had quite a lot of instances like that. Also often a surprise. Many of the teasing events included an element of surprise.

I mean that's also part of the fun. Okay, so great apes do engage in playful teasing behavior, but does that mean they understand humor?

There are some anecdote observations of joke like behaviors in great apes. Maybe you know the gorilla named Coco that already died, and Penny Patterson. She basically taught Coco how to do the sign language and to communicate in sign language, and it apparently happened a couple of times that Coco was answering to Penny wrongly even though she knew the correct answer. For example, Penny was asking, Hey, what did

Laugh at Coco last. Yes.

Yes, But also, I mean, we need to be a little bit careful also because the training history is not fully known, like behaviors like that were rewarded in the past. So that's why we need to be a little bit cautious. But I personally believe that probably she found it funny, but I mean we don't.

Know for sure.

I mean, it sounds funny. Brushing your teeth with foot is yeah, yeah, classic humor in my household. Now I know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking, I see my chihuahua chuckle, my cockitoo cackle. Cond Doctor Lamer and her colleagues figure out if other animals have a sense of humor.

So the first thing I.

Would do is would look more closely at other primates other than great apes, and then also at animals that also live in very complex social groups and that are also very smart, like for example, prots and kobe. I mean they are even though they have very small brain. Research found they have the same neural number as primates as well, like also dolphins for example. Yeah, I would

You need to start looking up cat jokes.

I think if the people that listen actually have instances above teasing observed.

In their animals.

So Erica Cardinal that I was working on the teasing study in grade eight, so she actually has a homepage where she is collecting examples of teasing. So if you, as a listener, have an animal at home that is actually repeatedly provocatively teasing you, this would be a good time to actually record yourself and the animal and send it to Erica's website.

Oh incredible, We're recruiting test subjects right now.

If people are interested.

Yeah, will I get my name in the paper. I'm just teasing you. I'm just teasing. Okay, the last question I had for doctor Lamer was, what is the fact that animals might have a sense of humor? See about us? What does that mean for us as humans? Does that mean that a lot of our behaviors have been there for a really long time? Yeah?

I mean, since we found playful teasing in all four great ape species, so that means likely that our last common ancestor, which lived thirteen million years ago, also showed similar forms of playful teasing.

So it actually says it shows something about our evolutionary past sentence. I feel like that humans think, oh, yeah, they're so special, but actually, when you look more closely into cognition in great apes, there are many similarities. So we are more similar than we are different.

All right, So to recap, there's an argument to be made that animals and social groups should have a sense humor, and at least in great aids, we can see that they do get around with each other. All of this means I think that the idea that humans are the only ones that find things funny, i'd just be a bad joke. I mean, talk about a punchline. Thanks for joining us, See you next time you've been listening to