Hearing laughter makes us want to laugh, why is that?

Seeing others laugh makes us laugh. But recent research points out that just listening to the voice of a smiling person makes us want to laugh back.

Laughing is a very normal and natural activity in human life.

We know how to laugh as if we were programmed from birth. Infants before they can speak can laugh. Visually impaired people can laugh like normal people.

Laughing can also spread ! Scientists have shown that seeing others laugh, whether honest or awkward, also makes us laugh.


Let's laugh .

Psychology explains how imitating other people's facial expressions is a way of going inside to generate empathy. In other words, people's natural tendencies are empathy, and we will laugh when others laugh.

But what about the sound? Turns out, just hearing laughter is enough for us to feel happy and want to laugh.

Specifically, in 2008, British scientists discovered that we have the ability to feel the smile of others without seeing it with our own eyes. And most recently, research in Paris has shown that people can unconsciously recognize laughter through other people's voices, then respond as if they were facing each other.

Picture 1 of Hearing laughter makes us want to laugh, why is that?
Just hearing laughter is enough for us to feel happy and want to laugh.

To conduct the experiment, the researchers tried to create smiles with digital software, which could add laughter to any recorded voice. Then they attached electrodes to the face of 35 volunteers, listening to them for some recordings, to see if the group recognized the laughter in it.

As a result, the volunteers not only recognized their intonation, but also responded with their smiles. Although in some cases, they deliberately stopped laughing, but the muscles of the cheekbones still shrank to prepare for a mouthful.

This work helps scientists delve into the disruption of expressive processes in patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)."We can learn how people with autism respond to artificial emotional signals in words," said Pablo Arias, the lead researcher.

Picture 2 of Hearing laughter makes us want to laugh, why is that?
The natural tendency of people is empathy, and we will laugh when others laugh.

Mr. Arias also revealed, in the future, the voice synthesis mechanism will be developed similarly to Google and Amazon to help the software work and communicate better. People with disabilities can use this software to add emotion to their words, similar to the way we still add emoticons when typing.

The study is published in Current Biology.