The exception of humour: Iconicity, Phonemic Surprisal, Memory Recall, and Emotional Associations

TL;DR

This meta-study investigates how humor, phonemic surprisal, emotional valence, and memory recall interrelate, revealing that humorous words uniquely combine positive emotions with high surprisal and memorability, challenging typical emotional memory patterns.

Contribution

It uncovers that humorous words defy usual emotional memory trends by exhibiting high surprisal and memorability despite positive valence, expanding understanding of humor's cognitive effects.

Findings

Humorous words show higher surprisal than non-humorous positive words.

Negative associations correlate with greater surprisal and recall.

Humor uniquely combines positive emotion with increased memorability.

Abstract

This meta-study explores the relationships between humor, phonemic bigram surprisal, emotional valence, and memory recall. Prior research indicates that words with higher phonemic surprisal are more readily remembered, suggesting that unpredictable phoneme sequences promote long-term memory recall. Emotional valence is another well-documented factor influencing memory, with negative experiences and stimuli typically being remembered more easily than positive ones. Building on existing findings, this study highlights that words with negative associations often exhibit greater surprisal and are easier to recall. Humor, however, presents an exception: while associated with positive emotions, humorous words also display heightened surprisal and enhanced memorability.