Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdcsu!smann
From: smann@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Shannon Mann - I.S.er)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Artificial intelligence and laughter
Summary: Laughter isn't always caused by the absurd.
Keywords: laughter
Message-ID: <5220@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Date: 30 Oct 88 02:08:36 GMT
References: <448@soleil.UUCP> <1620@hp-sdd.HP.COM>
Reply-To: smann@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Shannon Mann - I.S.er)
Distribution: na
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 34

In article <1620@hp-sdd.HP.COM> nick@hp-sdd.hp.com.UUCP (Nick Flor) writes:
>
>I  disagree.  I  think  people  are  conditioned  to  laugh/smile   upon
>realization  of the  nonobvious.  I guess  someone who's into  knowledge
>representation  would say  something  like:  laughter  is a  conditioned
>response  corresponding  to the integration of new knowledge  items into
>existing semantic structures.  These new knowledge items have three main
>properties:
>
>1) They were previously unthought of.
>2) They  have  weak  associations  with the  structures  they are  being
>   integrated into.
>3) I just thought I'd put a (3) in case I forgot something.
>
>Let's just say that smiling/laughter is a result of the ONIGI phenomenon.
>(Oh, Now I Get It).
>
>Nick

If you were to watch a group of teenage males while they were watching
say, Shakespeare's _Macbeth_, you would find that most of them respond
with laughter when tears would be more appropriate.

The cause?  It was explained to me that they react that way because 
laughing is an excepted behavior while crying is not.

What do you think?

        -=-
-=- Shannon Mann -=- smann@watdcsu.UWaterloo.ca
        -=-

'I have no brain, and I must think...' - An Omynous
'If I don't think, AM I' - Another Omynous