The sensitization of humor responses to cartoons

It was hypothesized that a humor response to a cartoon in a series depends upon arousal or increased salience, both of which may be produced by preceding cartoons. A humor response, however, should eventually decline owing to habituation. Three experiments were conducted in order to determine if responding to cartoons with the same theme depends upon the cartoon's serial position. Facial responses and ratings of funniness increased over the first few cartoons, reflecting the effect of arousal or salience. It appears that the initial cartoons make the person more sensitive to later cartoons. A downward trend in responding was more apparent for facial responses than for funniness ratings. The evidence for habituation was weak, however, and did not seem occur to the experimenter-defined cartoon theme. Cartoons even representing the same theme may be too variable to permit habituation. It was suggested that cartoon researchers be aware of the effect of a cartoon's serial position on humor responses.The investigators would like to thank Michael Davis, Michael Mullins, and Elizabeth Weaver for their assistance in data collection and analyses.