Getting older is no joke
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before . . . Over-65s who are seeking a soulmate through the classified ads will have to rethink the old GSOH (good sense of humour) ploy because a new study tells us that the cognitive ability to understand what makes a joke funny declines with age. Does this mean that as we get more funny peculiar, we get less funny ha-ha? Or does it just mean that life is less funny for older people?
Researchers at Washington University say that older people can lose the ability to “comprehend humour” (although I am well under 65 and have never understood what makes Graham Norton funny). They compared humour comprehension scores between a group of OAPs and undergraduates by administering The Joke and Story Completion Test, in which a joke stem is followed by four choices, only one of which has the appropriate “boom boom” pay-off, also called “the correct humorous ending”.
Put that way, it sounds so flat, dull and logical that you could see someone selecting the wrong answer, just to be quirky. Or maybe they find the wrong answer funnier. And what is the potential application for this finding? Perhaps formulaic sitcom writers can insert a little man at the side of the screen holding a sign that says “here comes the joke . . .” so they know where they’re supposed to laugh.