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University Professor Yoji Kimura (standing at the back) demonstrates how to measure laughter in Osaka on February 20, 2008.
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Japanese professor Yoji Kimura believes laughter is a weapon that in healthy doses can end the world's wars. To measure it, the expert on communications has invented a machine to chart out laughter -- and a new unit of "aH" to calculate it.
"We have found that children laugh more freely, releasing 10 aH per second, which is about twice as much as an adult," Kimura, a professor at Kansai University in the western city of Osaka, told reporters on Friday.
"Adults tend to calculate whether it's appropriate to laugh and under those restraints they eventually forget how," he said.
"Laughing is like a restart function on a computer. Laughing freely is very important in the course of human evolution," he said.
Kimura, who believes in "a shift from a century of wars to a century of humour and tolerance," has studied the science of laughter for decades in Osaka, the hub of Japan's stand-up comedy scene.
In his theory, human laughter is produced in four successive emotional stages -- letting loose, then deviating from the norm, followed by freely laughing and then having the laughter overflow.
"I believe there is a circuit in the human brain that creates laughter through these steps to the stage of overflowing," Kimura said confidently. "Understanding this mechanism is the door to resolving one secret of human beings."
To measure laughter, he attaches sensors on the skin of a tested subject's stomach, particularly the diaphragm, and detects muscle movements.
"I have a theory that humour detected in the brain gets directly discharged through the movement of diaphragm," he said.
By checking the movement of the diaphragm and other parts of the body, it will be possible to see if a person is only pretending to laugh while also distinguishing different types of laughter such as derision and cynicism, Kimura said.
Kimura wants to make the measuring device as small as a mobile phone and possibly market it as a health and amusement gadget.
Kimura said he planned to present his findings this summer to the US-based International Society for Humor Studies, adding that he looked forward to looking at differences in laughter internationally.
(Agencies) |
在日本教授木村譽(yù)二看來，笑好比一種武器，“適度的”笑具有結(jié)束戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的力量。但如何對(duì)“笑”進(jìn)行測(cè)量呢？這位溝通學(xué)專家發(fā)明出一種“測(cè)笑”圖儀——及其測(cè)算單位“aH”。
來自日本西部城市大阪的關(guān)西大學(xué)的木村教授于上周五接受記者的采訪時(shí)說：“我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，兒童笑起來更加無拘無束，每秒鐘能釋放10aH，為成年人的兩倍。”
他說：“成年人往往會(huì)考慮何時(shí)該笑，何時(shí)不該笑，在這些因素的制約下，他們最終就會(huì)忘記如何去笑。”
他說：“笑就像電腦的重啟功能，自由自在地笑對(duì)于人類的進(jìn)化過程十分重要。”
大阪為日本的單口相聲中心，數(shù)十年來，木村教授一直在此研究“笑”這門科學(xué)。他相信，（笑可以讓）“一個(gè)充滿戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的世界變?yōu)橐粋€(gè)充滿幽默而包容的世界”。
根據(jù)木村教授的理論，人的笑聲主要經(jīng)過四個(gè)相繼的情緒階段而產(chǎn)生，依次是放松、偏離常態(tài)、自由地笑，最后大笑。
木村教授自信地說：“我認(rèn)為人腦中存在一個(gè)回路，能通過以上這幾個(gè)步驟產(chǎn)生笑聲。了解這一機(jī)制有助于我們解開人類自身的一大秘密。”
在“測(cè)笑”過程中，木村教授在試驗(yàn)對(duì)象的腹部（尤其是橫膈膜位置）安置了傳感器，以檢測(cè)肌肉運(yùn)動(dòng)。
他說：“我有一個(gè)理論，在大腦中檢測(cè)到的幽默能通過橫膈膜的運(yùn)動(dòng)直接釋放出來。”
通過檢測(cè)橫膈膜及身體其它部位的運(yùn)動(dòng)，能夠判斷一個(gè)人是否是假笑，同時(shí)還能辨別出不同類型的笑，比如嘲笑、冷笑等。
木村教授希望能將這種“測(cè)笑”裝置制成手機(jī)大小，并將其作為一種健康娛樂的小玩意兒推向市場(chǎng)。
木村說，他計(jì)劃于今年夏天向位于美國(guó)的國(guó)際幽默研究學(xué)會(huì)呈報(bào)將他的研究成果，他還希望自己能研究出世界各地笑聲的不同。
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（英語點(diǎn)津姍姍編輯）
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