I guess you had to be there: group laughter is is perceived to be funnier than its laughable

The assumed link between humour and laughter has been questioned as laughter is common in non-humorous social scenarios. We explore the relationship between laughter and laughables. Using laughs and laughables extracted from a storytelling scenario. We examined the sociality (number of laughers) and target of laughter (a self-generated laughable or other-generated laughable). Raters perceived the funniness associated with a laugh to be similar to that of the laughable in all cases but the social laughs from other people’s laughables. In that case, laughs are perceived to be from a laughable that was funnier than the actual laughable was judged to be. Sociality appears to add funniness value to laughter.