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Do bilinguals get the joke? Humor comprehension in mono- and bilinguals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2022

Emilia V. Ezrina Open the ORCID record for Emilia V. Ezrina [Opens in a new window]  and
Virginia Valian
Emilia V. Ezrina*
Affiliation:
The City University of New York, Graduate Center, New York, USA Hunter College, New York, USA
Virginia Valian*
Affiliation:
The City University of New York, Graduate Center, New York, USA Hunter College, New York, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Emilia V. Ezrina or Virginia Valian, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Hunter College, Room 510 TH, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065 Email: eezrina@gradcenter.cuny.edu, virginia.valian@hunter.cuny.edu
Address for correspondence: Emilia V. Ezrina or Virginia Valian, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Hunter College, Room 510 TH, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065 Email: eezrina@gradcenter.cuny.edu, virginia.valian@hunter.cuny.edu
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Abstract

Understanding jokes may differ between mono- and bilinguals because of differences in lexical access; fluency and sense of humor may also be relevant. Three experiments examined English-language joke comprehension in monolingual (n = 91) and bilingual (n = 111) undergraduates, Russian–English bilinguals (n = 39), and MTurk monolinguals (n = 77). Participants rated jokes and non-jokes in English as funny or not funny. We assessed the effects of bilingualism, language dominance, fluency, sense of humor, experience, and motivation on response time (RT) and sensitivity (d′) in identifying jokes. Bilingualism predicted neither RT nor d′ in mono- and English-dominant bilingual undergraduates; English fluency predicted d′. Russians were slower than English-dominant bilinguals but were more not less sensitive to humor. MTurk monolinguals were faster than undergraduates and equally sensitive; sense of humor predicted sensitivity. Overall, humor processing is alternately affected by fluency, sense of humor, and motivation, depending on the population. Bilingualism per se is not a factor.

Keywords

bilingualismhumor processingfluencysense of humor
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , January 2023 , pp. 95 - 111
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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