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This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Susanne Bard¹.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是苏珊娜·巴德。

"I thought you were downstair boxing chocolates.""Oh, they kicked me out of there. I kept pinching them to see what kind they were."

“我以为你在楼下给巧克力装盒呢。”“哦，他们把我赶出来了。因为我总是捏巧克力，想看看是什么种类的。”

(CLIP: I Love Lucy with laugh track)

（上述音频来自美国情境喜剧《我爱露西》中的搞笑片段）

Laugh tracks in television shows like I Love Lucy have been encouraging us to chuckle² since the 1950s. But they originated even before that with old radio shows.

自上世纪50年代以来，《我爱露西》等电视节目的笑声音轨一直在鼓励我们发笑。但在此之前，就有老广播节目开始播放喜剧了。

"If you just put out a comedy program on the radio, people didn't necessarily realize it was supposed to be funny. So they started recording³ them with a live audience because then people had all the cues that they would get if they were at the theaters, say—of an audience response. And, indeed, laughter can be highly contagious⁴."

“如果只是在电台播放喜剧节目，人们不一定认为这会很好笑。所以他们开始在录制时加入现场观众，因为这样人们就能获得在剧院中感受到的所有信息，比如现场观众的反应。而笑声确实可以有高度传染性。”

Sophie Scott is a cognitive⁵ neuroscientist at University College London. She and her team wondered whether adding laughter to a joke could also make it seem funnier. So they scoured⁶ the Internet for the most groan-worthy jokes they could find and enlisted⁷ the help of a professional comedian⁸ to record them.

伦敦大学学院的认知神经学家索菲·斯科特说到。她和团队想知道，在笑话中加入笑声是否也能使其更好笑。因此，他们在网上搜索他们能找到的最冷的笑话，并请专业喜剧演员帮忙录制。

"So things like 'What's the best day for cooking? Friday. How does a dinosaur⁹ pay its bills? Using tyrannosaurus checks,' that kind of thing. And then we got people to rate how funny they were without any laughter added."

“比如‘哪一天最适合做饭？星期五。’（注：Friday，音似fried day）。‘恐龙怎样支付账单？用霸王龙支票。’（Tyrannosaurus Chex指账单来时，收回手臂等别人付款的人。俗称蹭饭，霸王餐。）然后我们让人们在没有添加任何笑声的情况下为笑话的幽默程度打分。”

The researchers paired the jokes with both spontaneous, involuntary laughter and with laughter that had been produced on demand.

研究人员将这些笑话与自发的、不由自主的笑声以及按需产生的笑声进行配对。

"What do you get when you ask a lemon for help? (Lemon aid)"

“当你向柠檬求助时，你会得到什么？”（柠檬援助：音同lemonade柠檬水）

(CLIP: Lemonade joke with laughter)

（上述音频片段是配有笑声的柠檬水笑话）

They played these recordings¹⁰ to adults, some neurotypical and some on the spectrum¹¹.

他们将这些录音播放给成年人听，有些成年人是非自闭症，有些是孤独症谱系障碍。

"The main thing that we found was that the people with autism and the neurotypical controls were both influenced by laughter in the same way. So everybody found that the more intense the laughter, the funnier that made the joke. So everybody's rating the jokes as even funnier when they're paired with spontaneous laughter."

“我们的主要发现是，自闭症患者和非自闭症对照组都能以同样的方式被笑声感染。因此，所有人都发现，加入的笑声越激烈，笑话就越好笑。所以，所有人都认为配自发笑声的笑话更好笑。”

That is, honest, involuntary laughter cued people to perceive the jokes as funnier more than fake, forced laughter did. And that result was universal: "I think we were expecting there to be some differences for the people with autism, and we did not find them."

也就是说，与虚假且不真诚的笑声相比，真诚且不由自主的笑声会让人们觉得笑话更好笑。这一结论普遍适用：“我们本来以为自闭症患者的反应会有些不同，但我们并未发现不同。”

But autistic participants did find the jokes funnier overall.

不过总体来说，自闭症患者确实认为这些笑话更好笑。

"And I think what we're seeing here is that the people with autism are more generous in their assessment¹² of the jokes, I suspect, although that's just one interpretation¹³."

“我想我们在这里看到的是，自闭症患者对笑话的评价更慷慨，我怀疑如此，尽管这只是我们的一种解读。”

The study appears in the journal Current Biology.

这项研究发表在《当代生物学》期刊上。

In future laughter experiments, the researchers plan to scan participants' brains to better understand the neural¹⁴ systems responsible for tickling¹⁵ our funny bones. When they do, they may discover that dogs can't operate an MRI machine, but CAT scan.

在未来的笑声实验中，研究人员计划扫描参与者的大脑，以更好地了解负责让我们发笑的神经系统。当他们这样做时，他们可能会发现狗不能操作核磁共振成像仪，但是猫能。（CAT scan音同cats can，是计算机层析成像扫描的意思。）

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Susanne Bard.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是苏珊娜·巴德。