New Research Looks At The Neurology Of Your Punniest Dad Jokes
You'll get the (neurolo)gist of it.
Your kid may not be the biggest fan of dad jokes yet, but what do they know — they just lost their nose. The next time anyone tries to call dad jokes stupid, they can riddle you this: Then why the hell did a team of scientists recently study what they do to your brain? This is your brain … and this is your brain on dad jokes.
Researchers from the University of Windsor in Ontario had subjects observe puns on their right and left sides, corresponding with each hemisphere of the brain. Then they watched how each side responded — and unlike your spouse, it wasn’t by exiting the room. (Hiyo!) As Lori Buchanan, co-author of the study, explained to Scientific American, the left side of your brain (the linguistic hemisphere) first processes the word itself, then right side kicks in later to the reveal the double meaning. Then in your case, both sides high-5 each other.
flickr / Ben Barnett
Haters can think that that enjoying a dad joke means not using your head, but the truth is you need a whole lot of it. Without using both side of your brain, you risk a lot more mispunderstandings. This echoes past research that suggests if your puns are really, really bad, it could be a symptom of brain damage. So maybe brush up your joke game. You don’t want to worry your family.
[H/T] Scientific American
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