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The impact of humor on infant social learning: Insights from social gaze, heart rate variability, and laughter

par Di Stasi, Romain ;Esseily, Rana Esseily R.;Cerrotti, Fabien;Rat-Fischer, Lauriane
Référence Cognitive development, 74
Publication Publié, 2025-04-16

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

Humor is a universal aspect of human culture, serving both social and cognitive functions. Thisstudy investigates humor’s influence on infant learning, focusing on physiological, behavioral,and emotional responses. Building on previous research, we examined three questions: (1) Doeshumor affect infants’ behaviors during a social learning task, such as looking, laughing, andsmiling? (2) Does humor enhance learning, and is this effect age-dependent? (3) Can arousal,measured by heart rate variability (HRV), explain the relationship between humor and learning?We tested 88 infants aged 14–22 months, exposing them to either a humorous or neutraldemonstration of a tool-use task. We assessed infants’ performance after demonstration andcoded social gazes and emotional reactions. We also analyzed physiological arousal indicators,namely heart rate variability (HRV), through a connected wristband. Our analyses revealed thatinfants exposed to humorous demonstrations showed enhanced learning compared to those in theneutral condition, independently of whether they laughed or not. This suggests that laughing doesnot mediate the effect of humor on learning. Additionally, infants in the humorous conditionlooked more at the experimenter, which could indicate increased engagement or attentionalprocesses. Finally, our HRV analyses revealed that infants who succeeded in the task exhibitedhigher HRV than those who did not. This study is the first to explore the mechanisms underlyinghumor’s effect on infant learning, emphasizing its complexity and the need for a multidimensionalapproach integrating cognitive, behavioral, and physiological factors.