Although laughter and humour have been constituents of humanity for thousands if not millions of years, their systematic study has begun only recently. Investigations into their neurological correlates remain fragmentary and the following review is a first attempt to collate and evaluate these studies, most of which have been published over the last two decades. By employing the classical metho...

AIM To evaluate the diagnostic value of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) performed on aqueous humour for the detection of viral DNA in patients with necrotising herpetic retinitis. METHODS The clinical features and laboratory results of 22 patients (29 eyes) presenting with necrotising herpetic retinitis between March 1999 and June 2001 were reviewed retrospectively. Aqueous humour was obtaine...

Jokes, ethnic slurs and parodies often occur in Internet comments, as the general feeling of anonymity allows for and even favours balancing on the verge of the acceptable and the unacceptable. Thus, a humorously intended comment can be perceived as aggressive by other Internet users. This possibility is further enhanced by the fact that the electronic media in general and computer mediated com...

Aim: To evaluate the diagnostic value of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) performed on aqueous humour for the detection of viral DNA in patients with necrotising herpetic retinitis. Methods: The clinical features and laboratory results of 22 patients (29 eyes) presenting with necrotising herpetic retinitis between March 1999 and June 2001 were reviewed retrospectively. Aqueous humour was obtaine...

This study attempts to describe the basic ayurvedic theory of tridosha (three humour theory) vividly here.

The article focuses on identity investment in stand-up comedy and online sketches performed by Romanian (or of descent) comedians acting abroad (France United Kingdom). It aims at highlighting various humorous strategies that could be construed around a shared feature: the importance performer’s stage (persona). analysis is based theoretical framework which combines stance(taking) studies disco...

This research provides further data regarding non-literal language comprehension following right hemisphere damage (RHD). To assess the impact of RHD on the processing of non-literal language, ten participants presenting with RHD and ten matched healthy control participants were administered tasks tapping humour appreciation and pragmatic interpretation of non-literal language. Although the RHD...

Irony and humour are just two of many forms of figurative language. Approaches to identify in vast volumes of data such as the internet humorous or ironic statements is important not only from a theoretical view point but also for their potential applicability in social networks or human-computer interactive systems. In this study we investigate the automatic detection of irony and humour in so...