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It's funny. Laugh. Science

Canned Laughter Makes Jokes Seem Funnier, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 164

Posted by BeauHD from the good-for-a-laugh dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In research that will ensure the sitcoms of the future are as painful as those broadcast today, scientists have found that canned laughter makes bad jokes seem funnier. The impact of overlaid laughter emerged from a study with autistic and "neurotypical" people, all of whom agreed to endure 40 jokes that were read aloud with recorded laughter following the punchline. All of the volunteers found the jokes funnier when they were accompanied by the sound of others laughing, with the biggest gains produced by recordings of spontaneous laughter rather than more deliberate and controlled laughing, the study found.

For the study, PhD student Qing Cai and others trawled the internet for what they describe as "weak" jokes and compiled a list for the comedian Ben van der Velde to read out to those taking part in the study. To get a baseline score for how funny the jokes were, each was assessed without any backing laughter by 20 students who rated them on a scale from one (not funny) to seven (hilarious). The scores ranged from 1.5 to 3.75. Armed with the list and their baseline funny ratings, the scientists asked 72 adults, of whom 24 had an autism diagnosis, to rate the jokes on the same seven-point scale. This time, the jokes were told with either posed or spontaneous canned laughter following the punchline. Writing in the journal Current Biology, the researchers described how any kind of canned laughter had boosted the average scores the jokes had received. Both neurotypical and autistic people reacted more to spontaneous laughter than controlled laughter. And while canned laughter appeared to improve some jokes more than others, controlled laughter raised ratings by an average of about 10%, compared with 15% to 20% for spontaneous laughter.
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Canned Laughter Makes Jokes Seem Funnier, Study Finds More

Canned Laughter Makes Jokes Seem Funnier, Study Finds

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  • There's the answer to life then: (Score:5, Funny)

    by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Monday July 22, 2019 @10:35PM (#58970244) Journal

    carry a laugh track around with you.

  • Because... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Monday July 22, 2019 @10:35PM (#58970248) Homepage Journal

    Because ya, for 50 years of television, networks have been using canned laughter for no reason at all.

    Of course it works. Laughing is a social effect. You feel more at ease laughing in a group than alone. No one wants to be that guy who thinks something is hilarious that no one else finds funny.

    What is money is that someone spent time and money on this study.

    • Yeah, what you said. Is everything old eventually new again? We've had 'laugh tracks' for a long long time now. They even have signs in studio audiences that light up and say "laugh" or "applause" to prompt them.

    • Re:Because... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Monday July 22, 2019 @11:31PM (#58970392) Homepage

      I find it all works if I do not notice the repetitive pattern of it, once it do it sounds like shite and I can not watch the program any more for quite some time, the canned fake laughter becomes grating.

      • This is what the marketing studies always have showed, and it is why they go to the trouble and expense of having a Live Studio Audience.

        In fact, the ability to have a live study audience is most of the reason they shoot most of the shows in the same city. Otherwise they'd film in cheaper markets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zarhan ( 415465 )

      There is a difference between "canned" daughter and live studio audience. The former causes mostly cringing, the latter, yes, it does work because it "feels" real and spontaneous. One of the worst offenders are old cartoons (e.g. Flintstones) that come with a canned laugh track.

      Of course, these days you can probably create a "realistic" live studio audience laughter with some AI-based thingamagic without ever needing the real audience...

      Then there's the lampshade hanging that some shows do. I remember old M

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • When M*A*S*H was shown on BBC2 in the UK (1980s), it was broadcast without the laugh track. A few years later, one of the satellite channels was running the show but with the laugh track. Man, that laugh track got annoying real fast. Every time Hawkeye opened his mouth, canned laughter was sure to follow.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      There is another explanation for why canned laughter is used: good comedy uses a live audience and comedians know how to work it. If you watch something like Fawlty Towers you can see the stark contrast between something like Big Bang Theory, where they pause to wait for laughter after every joke. John Cleese's timing is perfect and he works the laughter into the scene naturally.

      When the actors are not very good, the canned laughter is there to hide that fact by fixing their bad timing and audience interact

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Yeah, but the audience is very tightly controlled in filmings of TBBT. Normal people don't start and stop laughing all in perfect unison like that, it only happens when there is a guy signalling to them to do it on the 4th take of that scene.

          Compare to Fawlty Towers where it's completely natural. Sure the audience has probably been warmed up a bit, but they are genuinely reacting to what is happening in front of them.

          • Re:Because... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @08:41AM (#58971688)

            Yeah, but the audience is very tightly controlled in filmings of TBBT. Normal people don't start and stop laughing all in perfect unison like that, it only happens when there is a guy signalling to them to do it on the 4th take of that scene.

            Compare to Fawlty Towers where it's completely natural. Sure the audience has probably been warmed up a bit, but they are genuinely reacting to what is happening in front of them.

            Of course, it helps that Fawlty Towers is actually funny. Big Bang Theory? Not so much. After a few episodes, I had heard pretty much everything they had to offer

          • Wrong, retard.

            I can tell you've never been to a show taping. Yes, there's a sign and a guy, but it's for timing. If they don't get the same reaction they got on take 1 for take 4, then they use the reaction from take 1. The audience is mic'd separately, and that's the extent of the "laugh track". They don't use "canned laughs" or fake reactions.

            When you don't have that, you get Married with Children. The show was fucking great, as was the audience response and interaction (the scene with Al about to ea

        • Because the laughter doesn't "seem" natural. The audience laugh hard at every tiny little thing which you wouldn't expect from a live audience.

          I heard that shows that are filmed in front of a studio audience usually "manage" the laughter. They record the audience's reactions, but for final editing they piece together the laughs they want at the times they want. Originally this was done because of retakes. When the actors stuff the scene 6 times in a row you aren't going to get the same laughs for the jokes,

          • I *suspect* but have no proof that BBT are overly managing the laughs, putting the strongest reactions they have in every pause. Makes it sound unnatural.

            Yeah, I'm pretty certain that there is some canned stuff they add in post production. The episodes I have watched don't seem very much like live audiences.

            As well, the study done here is a bit redundant. Some Youtuber removed the laughter from an episode, and the results are not funny, but kind of creepy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] is the vid, and https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/... [digitalspy.com] for some commentary on it.

            • I'm pretty certain that there is some canned stuff they add in post production

              Wrong. The most they would do is use a reaction from the original take on a subsequent take.

              • I'm pretty certain that there is some canned stuff they add in post production

                Wrong. The most they would do is use a reaction from the original take on a subsequent take.

                So where are the citations that they use only the audience laughter, and nothing else. You speak with great auuthorityu. The times I've listened to this rather unfunny show, it sounds odd. So what makes it sound odd, and how do you know with such authority that I am so wrong?

    • Of course it works.

      Its effectiveness is very likely inversely proportional to audience intelligence.

    • What is money is that someone spent time and money on this study.

      What's weird is that someone spent time and money on this study again. This was studied to death decades ago.

    • But when you find yourself laughing at a joke you didn't want to laugh at, and you don't even feel amused, do you turn off the TV, or is it your favorite show?

      This study might not be all it is cracked up to be.

    • To add to your point:

      Cheers never used a laugh track -- it was filmed in front of a live studio audience. People laughed because they genuinely thought the jokes were funny.

      Big Bang without a laugh track [youtube.com] shows just how bad the jokes are.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        TBBT has a live audience. According to the studio tour, the writers actually rewrite the jokes right there during filming if they don't get enough laughter, then re-shoot the scene.

    • I definitely laugh more out loud at home watching some movies than I do in the theater. And indeed some of that is finding some pun or wit funny and not caring about laughing because no one is around, but in a theater there's a sense that I shouldn't laugh if no one else is. As opposed to my friend who will readily laugh out loud at the wrong times in the theater, and applaud when the hero arrives, etc.

    • What is funny is that someone spent time and money on this study.

      Not really. There's a lot of value in formally testing things that everyone knows, because it's actually not that uncommon that the things everyone knows are, in fact, wrong. Of course, thanks to hindsight bias, as soon as a study finds that something everyone knows is true is wrong, suddenly a large percentage of people who hear about the study decide that they always wondered whether that thing was true.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by epine ( 68316 )

      No one wants to be that guy who thinks something is hilarious that no one else finds funny.

      There was a time in my life where I didn't have a single friend who had ever given this particular social fear a second thought.

      One of them had a spontaneous laugh that could wake the dead.

      Maybe times I sat beside him in a darkened theatre where he unleashed his ear-splitting solo snork.

      The saving grace was that his humor reflex was lightening fast and he usually managed to emit his snork before most of the audience h

  • Over time it seems like canned laugh tracks have really grown to just grate on me, to where I can't even watch shows that have them anymore.

    I still enjoy people laughing in live events and think that does enhance being at an event or movie. But the canned stuff just seems to have the opposite of the desired effect on me now.

    • It also depends on how frequently and how obviously fake the canned laughter is. My oldest son was watching some show on Netflix and it was basically bad joke, obvious canned laughter, another bad joke, more canned laughter, third bad joke, even more canned laughter, really bad joke, canned laughter intensifies. He loved the show, but it was grating to me because 1) the laughter was so obviously fake (like the exact same laughter each time with no variation) and 2) there was so much of it (in the range of a

  • Chuck Lorre knew this twelve years ago.

  • In case you were wondering if Uni's waste money (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Monday July 22, 2019 @10:47PM (#58970292)
    Just in case you were wondering if Universities waste money on stupid things:

    >> University College London: canned laughter makes jokes seem funnier

    The answer is YES.

    • Re:In case you were wondering if Uni's waste money (Score:5, Informative)

      by IRGlover ( 1096317 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @06:22AM (#58971178)

      If you only read Slashdot's bad summary of a bad summary of the actual study then this does look frivoulous, however the actual research was more around the cues that Autistic people use to better understand the 'typical' emotional response to a social interaction. They were more likely than the baseline group to find something funny if there was canned laughter. This suggests that the test subjects are relying more on social cues to form their own response than 'neuro-typical' people. Whether you think that is worthwhile research or not is a separate question, of course.

      • Thank you, I didn't make it past the headline. I still think it is a natural response to laugh with others. But when studying individuals that have problems with emotions, I no longer find it a waste of money.

      • If you only read Slashdot's bad summary of a bad summary of the actual study then this does look frivoulous, however the actual research was more around the cues that Autistic people use to better understand the 'typical' emotional response to a social interaction.

        Yes - reminds me of old Senator William Proxmire and his "Golden Fleece" awards. It was supposed to highlight government research waste, but what it was was a sort of reverse cherry picking. I recall one where he was yapping about shrimp on treadmills. And yeah, shrimp did walk on treadmills. But that was just part of some real actual there's a point to it research.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wolfrider ( 856 )

        THANK you. 24 out of the 72 people studied were autistic, which means this study was skewed from the start! Not to mention they had a relatively small sample size to work with.

  • Well, duh. It's how they got 18 seasons out of Big Bang Theory...

    • We watched about three episodes of BBT and stopped because of the laugh track.

      • If Big Bang Theory had actual bad qualities you'd be able to use them as an argument against it rather than lying about it having a laugh track.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Search Youtube and you'll find somebody made a few Big Bang Theory clips with the laugh track taken out. Not only does it showcase how unfunny the show is, a lot of it isn't actually jokes.

    • This. There's some good examples on YouTube where the laugh track has been removed (they shot most later season scenes in front of a studio audience, but most of the first few seasons were canned laughter) and it turns the "humour" from funny to downright mean and nasty. If a lot of what they used as jokes were used in other circumstances, it would be called bullying and harassment.

    • And back in the 1960s why didn't all those people laughing at Gilligan, Skipper, and the rest of those poor survivors of the S.S. Minnow try to help save them from that island? How did they all exist there, especially when only just the main characters were ever shown on screen? How did they get all those easily-mirthy folks onto that small boat in the first place? Surely their spirits would have been broken to the point of despair, yet there they were every week howling with laughter at the wacky, zany ant

  • ...just a joke ?

  • A pint of schnapps and a handful of edibles will also make jokes seem funnier. At least that's what I've been told. Maybe I read it in a book.

  • How about an experiment. If a certain presidential candidate was to augment his rallys by piping crowd chants recorded from other rallys into the PA, would it work the same? Take chants that are already common and just slip them into the PA like a laff track. Would it make the crowd more pliant? Stuff like "drain the swamp" or "lock 'er up" or "send 'em back" or "kill 'em all". Turn the fear up to 11.

    • That would be dumb, it would probably work but it would be too obvious and it would be reported. Instead you just use plants in the crowd to start chants, then claim that you didn't agree with what they were chanting.

      • That would be dumb, it would probably work but it would be too obvious and it would be reported.

        Given recent tendencies, this is where the politician would declare the reporting as "Fake News" and insist that this wasn't canned chants. Of course, the easier way for politicians to do this is to plant a few operatives in the audience at key locations. Then, at certain instances, these operatives can begin chants. If planned right, they can make it seem like a chant originated organically when, in fact, it was

  • New study finds that advertisements that can be seen pretty much everywhere encourage people to buy the advertised products.

  • Canned Laughter Makes Jokes Seem Funnier to Imbeciles.

    There, fixed. Whoever invented laugh tracks is burning in hell right now, and for all eternity. With an endless laugh track loop playing in ear buds that are sewn in... wait... actually implanted in every bone of your skull. Enjoy.

  • Everytime I hear canned laughter, I cringe. Often changing the channel. If you need canned laughter to make the joke funny, perhaps it wasn't funny to begin with.

    • Using the word "cringe" like that is a sign of a pretentious millennial who has achieved nothing in life.

  • maybe it cues people to laugh at jokes they don't really understand because they'd rather fit in than appear to be ignorant of the joke.

    It sounds like an interesting experiment.

  • ...and people without any sense of humor whatsoever.
    They need additional social cues, so if you give it to them this way, it influences statistics.

  • if a comedy doesn't have a laugh track, its jokes must be better to be funny.

  • Mirror Neurons (Score:3)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @01:54AM (#58970670)

    It isn't mentioned in the article, but I'm guessing mirror neurons are involved. My understanding is that laughter functions as an 'all clear', to communicate within a group that a potential threat turned out to be harmless; so it'd be beneficial for the call to spread within the group, just as with howling or barking in canids.

    • One function is to create an ingroup (of people laughing) to separate it from an outgroup of those that don't. For example if somebody says something stupid, people will laugh to signal that they understand this person said something stupid and make an outcast of them, deterring them from such behaviour if they want to fit in. Unfortunately, the same happens if somebody says something intelligent that the group is not willing to accept. Another example is where people laugh simply to signal they underst

  • There's a summary of the jokes and ratings here:
    https://www.cell.com/cms/10.10... [cell.com]

    One was rated significantly worse with canned laughter: What's round and sounds like a trumpet? A crumpet.

    I guess I need to stop telling this one: What is brown and sticky? A stick.

  • Strange, one of the many things I disliked about the Big Bang Theory show (aside from the fact that it wasn't that funny and definitely not that geeky) was that it used a laughtrack. It just seemed such a 20th c. stunt to put into a supposedly modern and sophisticated show.

  • Have a go at re-watching stuff like "Friends", "Married with Children" and "Cheers" without the laugh-track... Just doesn't work, does it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zifn4b ( 1040588 )
      It does for me, I only ever laugh at the things that are actually funny to me regardless. What you're talking about probably depends on personality. Highly individualistic people like me don't care about group conformity but those that do, want to appear to be joining in group consensus which makes them feel good.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Hahahahahaha (Score:3)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @05:46AM (#58971076) Journal

    Like Hollywood didn't know what they were doing. Even "recorded in front of a live audience" shows use professional laughers to lead the crowd. Carol Burnett once introduced one of hers, who dutifully put on a demo.

    SNL uses them to.

    • Even "recorded in front of a live audience" shows use professional laughers to lead the crowd.

      There are professional laughers? I don't think I'd fit the job. Their job interviews must be a hoot, or would that be for professional hooters?

    • Like Hollywood didn't know what they were doing. Even "recorded in front of a live audience" shows use professional laughers to lead the crowd. Carol Burnett once introduced one of hers, who dutifully put on a demo.

      SNL uses them to.

      Why would SNL need a laughtrack? It hasn't been funny since the 70s.

  • See Roseanne [wikipedia.org]. Poor people being poor? Not very funny. Poor people being poor, accompanied by a laugh track? Hilarious!
  • You've got to be fucking kidding me. This is what science has become? Searching the Internet to see if canned laughter makes jokes seem funnier?

  • a/k/a (Score:1)

    by diaz ( 816483 )
    "...trawled the internet for what they describe as "weak" jokes..." otherwise known as "dad" jokes.
  • For those of us that understand how to read body language, micro-facial expressions and have studied psychology, this comes off as being fake AF. When something is detected as being fake, skepticism about whether deception is occurring happens.
  • Seriously, the networks and show producers have known this since the 50s.

    • Actually since the 1940s, was done on radio first, the Crosby show did it first. He used live audience laughter recorded during an off-color performance by Bob Burns that had people roaring, and then reused recording of it for his own lamer segments.

  • Seriously, they had to have a study to find this out? You mean, some egghead had to study a group of people to ask. Do you find something funnier if other people are laughing. Wonder if the people that were studied got paid. Even if it was only enough for a six pack, I would have went. Hell yea. Now give me my beer.
  • It is cheaper than paying for good writers. During its final years, The Big Bang Theory went overboard with the canned laughter. You could tell the producer was using it to cover up for weak, oh so very weak, jokes.

  • NPR Hidden Brain (Score:3)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @09:15AM (#58971858) Journal
    There was a documentary on NPR that made the same claim. Laughter is primarily a social experience.
  • This just in from the "No shit, Sherlock" School of Neuroscience: If you hear others laugh, you think stuff might be funny.
  • Laugh tracks have been used as a manipulative tool. More than once I had watched a scene around a situation that wasn't funny where I come from, yet the laugh track implied it was funny.

    I have really good aural memory and it was blatantly obvious even over multiple shows I was listening to a laugh track as the patterns of laughter was similar.

    I saw laugh tracks as a deceptive tool of manipulating culture and they are one of the reasons I ceased watching broadcast TV since 2000. I do not like being d

  • They want their results from their canned laughter studies back.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    Oh Ricky
    What a pity, don't you understand?
    That every day's a rerun and the laughter's always canned

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