The Impact of Laughter Tracks on Recall

Abstract

Humour provides many psychological benefits, including enhanced memory. One theory as to why this occurs is that of emotional arousal. This experiment uses a common humour stimulus, canned laughter, to test whether this could influence recall of sitcom details. The laughter track was hypothesised to influence levels of arousal and in turn influence memory. Results from this sample have suggested that recall was not significantly different between condition groups. Overt displays of laughter and humour ratings were also not significantly different between conditions. However, findings did suggest a gender bias in recall scores in both conditions. Overall, laughter tracks did not influence recall as was hypothesized.