Neuroscience innovator Vincent Whiteman WIRED

WIRED 2015: Next Generation is our annual event dedicated to inspiring young minds, where innovators aged 12 to 18 years old gather at London’s Tobacco Dock for talks, hands-on workshops and Q&As. For more from the event head to our WIRED NexGen Hub.

What makes you laugh? Sophie Scott thinks it goes deeper than comedy.


In fact Scott, a neuroscientist at University College, London, told the WIRED NexGen audience that even rats laugh. "It's not really about comedy or jokes," said Scott. "Actually, laughter is about social bonding."

Gallery: 'Even rats laugh!': Sophie Scott on the importance of laughter Gallery Gallery: 'Even rats laugh!': Sophie Scott on the importance of laughter + 5

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So what does laughter really mean? Well, it depends what kind of laughter you're talking about. There's spontaneous laughter -- the kind of laughter that you helplessly can't stop -- and social laughter. Social laughter is very different to spontaneous laughter in that it's voluntary, and often takes place in conversational speech. It's a communicative act -- and it plays a very useful role in social interaction.

Voluntary social laughter, even when posed, is about social bonding. Researchers in the US, Scott said, have also found that couples who laugh are both able to deal with stressful situations better -- and are more likely to stay together. "Laughter is an amazing strategy for people to feel good together," Scott said, a day following her talk at WIRED 2015 on what beatboxing can teach us about the brain.


Laughter is an amazing strategy for people to feel good together. Sophie Scott

"When you're talking with your friend, and she laughs, you don't really care if she's not actually laughing," Scott said. "We take it for what it is -- a positive sign of social bonding. It's really important."

Scott has also discovered that different kinds of laughter activate different areas of the brain. "People automatically classify heard laughter -- which means, no matter what, that laughter is always meaningful."