Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Chau, Aileen

Titel

Prefrontal cortex involvement in joke detection and appreciation

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Lesion studies have traditionally implicated the right hemisphere and prefrontal cortex (PFC) in humour processing. In contrast, neuroimaging studies have typically found bilateral frontotemporal activations. To determine the effect of PFC lesions on joke detection and appreciation, patients with focal unilateral PFC lesions (n = 27) and normal controls (n = 31) listened to and evaluated semantic and phonological jokes and non-joke baselines. All 10 patients with left PFC lesions and 13 of the 17 patients with right PFC lesions had frontal pole (FP) damage extending into the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Patients with right FP and OFC lesions erroneously identified more semantic and phonological baselines as jokes than controls. Patients with left FP and OFC lesions rated jokes and baselines as funnier than patients with right FP and OFC lesions and controls. These findings are inconsistent with the published literature and are explained using lesion location and stimuli differences.