Socia l Regu lat ion of Affect ive Exper ience of H umor

& The element of surprise, a necessary condition for the ex-perience of humor, often derives from the fact that the alter-native interpretation/resolution offered by the punch line of a joke is physically or socially forbidden. Children’s humor typifies violation of physical norms, whereas adult humor typi-cally pushes the boundaries of social norms. Excess norm violation, to the point of offending, can attenuate the expe-rience of humor/mirth. To examine the neural basis of regu-lation of affective experience of humor by social norms, we scanned 16 normal subjects while they viewed a series of car-toons that varied in funniness and social acceptability. Behav-ioral results indicated two separate groups of subjects, those who found the cartoons less offensive and those who found them more offensive. In the group that found the jokes mor