
What makes babies laugh? - jimsojim
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150728-why-do-babies-laugh-out-loud
======
rdtsc
TL;DR: Babies laugh in an interactive or social context. When adults around
them laugh, they laugh with them for example. They look at cues that others
are laughing and are happy, so simply watching someone trip and crack their
head on the floor won't be funny usually (it would probably register as
dangerous and scary).

Of course the important thing that is not mentioned explicitly is that it
makes adults, especially parents, happy and it rewards them, so laughter
becomes a bonding experience. Parents like to hear their baby laugh, they make
the baby laugh, they are happy and baby is happy. And as a result baby bonded
with their caregiver.

I don't remember when my daughter made her first steps on her own, or the
moment she said "daddy", but I remember vividly the context when she belly
laughed for the first time. For whatever reason that was a very wonderful and
memorable moment that I hope I'll never forget.

------
uidguiudfg34859
I vividly remember the first "joke" I shared with my infant son when he was
about 1-1.5:

He was pointing to colours and my job was to say it out loud. At one point, I
deliberately called black as "green" and he instinctively skipped to the next
color but quickly did a double take and jumped back to the previous one,
thinking he misheard it. I repeated "green" and he looked at me and started
laughing (I was expressionless).

Mind, this was the first time I had done something like this in any context.
And he got it! It was a joke.

Now, at about 5, he gets puns and sarcasm is hit'n'miss. As a side-note, the
whole thing as to how his appreciation for jokes is evolving is interesting.
But the most important thing for me as a parent is enjoying these moments of
laughter.

~~~
jevinskie
Wow, impressive story! To myself, understanding that particular joke requires
quite a lot of high level cognition. What an enjoyable moment that must have
been. :) I wonder if sarcasm/irony detection is at least partially an inborn
trait.

~~~
DasIch
The baby didn't have to understand the joke, it could have just picked up on
unintentional cues. This is something humans and many animals are able to do
very early on.

------
caseysoftware
I have a 10 month old and this feels right but I have zero data to back it up.

One thing I tried as an experiment turned into something good. When a baby
falls, bumps their head, hits themselves in the face (remember: no motor
control), their first impulse is to scream. Sort of.

I noticed that when ours falls, sometimes he looks at us before reacting
almost as if he's waiting for a clue on how to react. I clap and cheer and
instead of freaking out, he just smiles and goes back to what he was doing.

This only seems to work when surprise and not pain is the cause. If he bonks
his head, it's still the end of the world. ;)

~~~
Excavator
Worked on me. Falling into stinging nettles? No reaction. Bee sting? No
reaction. Scratching up knees and arms on a gravel road? No reaction.

In contrast. Teacher panicking over a bee landing on my arm? And now I'm
uncomfortable with bees and its ilk.

Of course, it could also be that I have some sort of mental illness.

------
dllthomas
_" Via his website he surveyed more than 1000 parents from around the world,
asking them questions about when, where and why their babies laugh."_

I hope this is just confusion through the lens of the BBC, but... It sounds
like they had people self-report when they observed babies laughing, and found
that babies laugh when being observed?

------
duked
I'm not really sure I'm convinced by the results. I'm not a researcher on
infant laugh but in my son's case I think it's mostly due to him trying to
mimic the expression his parents have. If you smile an infant smile if you
make a sad face he'll be sad. At least that's my it from my experience

~~~
grhino
How young is your infant? Early on, smiles are often imitation.

------
Mindless2112
This explanation seems overly narrow. Some novel sensations are just funny to
babies, like the sound of ripping paper [1], tickling their brain as it were.
(Okay, I wouldn't be surprised if could devise a study to show that the sound
of ripping paper alone doesn't make a baby laugh.)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4abiHdQpc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP4abiHdQpc)

~~~
mitchtbaum
I took it as discovering an unexpected, seemingly uncharacteristic quality of
something important.

A baby that sees elders consistently and intently look at paper, fold it
carefully, put it in important places, then all of a sudden sees one
purposefully break it would give a jolt.

Either way, I love that video and have wondered what else might give a baby a
similar experience.

------
mansilladev
Joy pressing the button.

------
ap22213
Though my 7 month old isn't a baby anymore, it's pretty clear to most people
that she knows that she has a great sense of humor. Not only does she
understand what's funny and what's not (subtleties in expectations and
anticipation), she makes up her own jokes, as well.

