Humor processing and appreciation was measured with the Cartoon paradigm developed by Samson, Zysset and Huber (2008). This paradigm includes three different types of non-verbal cartoons: visual puns, semantic cartoons and Theory of Mind cartoons. Visual puns (PUN) are based on visual ambiguity where one visual element contains several different meanings. For example in one such cartoon a man is shown watering a brain seated on itsbrain stem which looks like a flower stem. Semantic cartoons (SEM) are based on opposing content-related aspects and use the cognitive rules exaggeration or analogy. One SEM cartoon shows a doctor sitting in front of a patient and looks at the monitor normally showing the patient’s heart rate, but instead an angel that is flying is displayed, hinting at the death of the patient. Theory of Mind cartoons (TOM) are based on the false beliefs of the main character, who does not have all the information that is necessary to understand the situation. One TOM cartoon shows a man taking a picture of another man. The man, whose picture is being taken, laughs at the photographer, because a rock is about to fall on his head without his knowledge. So in order to understand this joke, one has to take into account the false beliefs of the photographer.
The paradigm consists of 96…show more content… Both prime and probe trial consist of a target and a distractor. In the experimental condition, the valence of the prime-trial distractor corresponds with the valence of the probe-trial target. In the control condition, there is no such similarity between the prime and the probe. For negative trials, the valence of both the prime-trial distractor and probe-trial target is negative, and for positive trials the valence of both the prime-trial distractor and probe-trial target is positive. Table 1 presents an overview of the control and experimental conditions of the negative and positive trials of the NAP