[In Press, Humor] Looking back: Joke comprehension and the space structuring model

We describe the space structuring model, a model of language comprehension inspired by ideas in cognitive linguistics, focusing on its capacity to explain the sorts of inferences needed to understand one-line jokes. One process posited in the model is frame-shifting, semantic and pragmatic reanalysis in which elements of the existing message-level representation are mapped into a new frame retrieved from long-term memory. To test this model, we recorded participants’ eye movements with a headbandmounted eye-tracker while they read sentences that ended either as a jokes, or as nonfunny controls (“She read so much about the bad effects of smoking she decided to give up the reading./habit.”) . Only jokes required frame-shifting; nonjoke endings were consistent with the contextually evoked frame. Though initial gaze durations were the same for jokes and nonjokes, total viewing duration was longer for the jokes and participants were more likely to make regressive (leftward) eye movements after reading the “punch word” of a joke. Results are consistent with the psychological reality of some process like frame-shifting, suggesting readers literally revisit aspects of the prior context while apprehending one-line jokes.