NEW YORK — When scientists set out to trace the roots of human laughter, some chimps and gorillas were just tickled to help. Literally.
That's how researchers made a variety of apes and some human babies laugh. After analyzing the sounds, they concluded that people and great apes inherited laughter from a shared ancestor that lived more than 10 million years ago.
Experts praised the work. It gives very strong evidence that ape and human laughter are related through evolution, said Frans de Waal of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta.
As far back as Charles Darwin, scientists have noted that apes make characteristic sounds during play or while being tickled, apparently to signal that they're interested in playing.
It's been suggested before that human laughter grew out of primate roots. But ape laughter doesn't sound like the human version. It may be rapid panting, or slower noisy breathing or a short series of grunts.
So what does that have to do with the human ha-ha?
To investigate that, Marina Davila Ross of the University of Portsmouth in England and colleagues carried out a detailed analysis of the sounds evoked by tickling three human babies and 21 orangutans, gorillas, chimps and bonobos.
After measuring 11 traits in the sound from each species, they mapped out how these sounds appeared to be related to each other. The result looked like a family tree. Significantly, that tree matched the way the species themselves are related, the scientists reported online Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
They also concluded that while human laughter sounds much different from the ape versions, its distinctive features could well have arisen from shared ancestral traits.
Jaak Panksepp of Washington State University, who studies laughter-like responses in animals but didn't participate in the new work, called the paper exciting.
It's the first formal study of how chimps and other apes respond to tickling, a highly detailed examination that compares an unusually wide range of species to humans, he said.
Panksepp's own work concludes that even rats produce a version of laughter in response to play and tickling, with chirps too high-pitched for people to hear. So he believes laughter goes even farther back in the mammalian family tree than the new paper proposes.
Robert Provine, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who wrote the 2000 book, "Laughter: A Scientific Investigation," said the new paper reveals some important insights, like details of the ape sounds that hadn't been appreciated before.
The Daily Oddity
June 4, 2009
Ha-Ha! Ape study traces evolution of laughter
- The Daily Oddity
-
- Norwegian accused of skin-crawling snake smuggling A man has been arrested in Norway trying to smuggle two dozen snakes and geckos into the country by hiding them under his clothes.
- Man pleads guilty to DWI in motorized La-Z-Boy A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk.
- Vick signing means no Eagles picks from NJ camel Philadelphia Eagles fans thirsty for predictions on whether their team will win or lose each week won't get them from a New Jersey pigskin-prognosticating camel.
- 'Moon rock' in Dutch museum is just petrified wood It's not green cheese, but it might as well be.
- Calif. man gets 2 more years for posing as lawyer A Southern California man sent to prison for seven years for falsely claiming to be an attorney has been sentenced to two more years for posing as a lawyer again days after he was released.
- Driver tells Conn. police snakes led to SUV crash Police say a driver blamed a car crash in Hartford, Conn., on two pet baby snakes that he said escaped from his pants pockets as he was driving.
- Dead shark left in Miami street after failed sale The body of a shark was left lying in the middle of a downtown Miami street after two men tried to sell it to several fish markets.
- Conn. cops: Man went naked to dental appointment Police say a Connecticut man has been arrested because he showed up at a dental office naked.
- Dimwitted thieves steal fake cell phones in Mexico Call it the case of the dead cells — both telephones and the ones in the brain.
- Thief view: Police nab twins snapped on Google Dutch police have arrested twin brothers on suspicion of robbery after their alleged victim spotted a picture of them following him on Google's Street View map application, a spokesman said Friday.
- More The Daily Oddity Headlines
