Public opinion is divided on the value of puns – some love them while others just think they're silly. In the context of this pilot project I test a specific hypothesis about the origin of these individual differences.

Puns work through homonymy: They utilize words with two meanings. During pun comprehension, the second meaning forces a reinterpretation of the linguistic material. We also know that large individual differences exist in the ability to quickly switch from one meaning of a homonym to the other. Some people have great difficulty to realize that a calf can be a body part if they're currently thinking of cattle.

I will carry out a psycholinguistic priming experiment which directly tests this ability to quickly switch between meanings. I will correlate the results of this experiment with ratings on the subjective appreciation of a number of jokes (including puns and other types of jokes). In addition, I will correlate the rating scores with additional variables that could also explain individual differences in joke appreciation. I will use behavioural psycholinguistic experiments and psychological test, the results of which will be analyzed in a regression analysis.

Jokes are a linguistic form that is particularly well suited for the investigation of cognition and emotion: Joke comprehension requires cognitive abilities, whereas joke appreciation evokes positive emotions.