The Power of Laughter

There is an area you might call the brain’s funny bone. It sits within the brain just behind the right eyebrow in a place called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This is where we “see” incongruity, and then register the surprise that makes us laugh. It’s the part of the brain that “gets” the joke, the whiplash effect. This may explain why you never see a laugh coming. It always surprises you. If it doesn’t, the laugh isn’t genuine.

Two cannibals are sitting in front of a campfire. One says to ...