Lanyon building--the main University building

1st International Summer School and Colloquium on Humour and Laughter: Theory, Research and Applications

at Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Report

Lanyon building

where? 

David Keir Building--18/30 Malone Road (see picture on the right)

when?

25th - 30th June 2001

 

David Keir Building--School of Psychology

who?

Teaching faculty:

  • Paul McGhee
  • Willibald Ruch

Guest teacher:

  • Christie Davies
  • Barbara Wild & Frank A. Rodden

Participants

This web-site contains informations for participants of the summer school. It is . So come back and check for updates. 

Overview

Getting oriented

The programm

Getting oriented

A good start for a virtual tour of the University is the web-site of Queen's Visitors' Centre. There you find maps to get you oriented: but also other valuable information on travelling, events, exhibitions etc.

Sites of importance

Three sites are of prime importance, Queen's Elms Halls of Residence, David Keir Building, and the Main Building.

Use an online campus map to find these buildings, or better still, download the entire map of the campus (1.9 MB) and the key to the buildings (40 KB).

  • Queen's Elms Halls of Residence
    • Queen's Elms Halls of Residence (78 Malone Road) is #49 on the map. It is Queen's main accommodation complex, and within easy walking distance from the School of Psychology. There are two older "towers" but we have reserved self catering rooms in a quite modern building with approx. 10 rooms on one floor.
  • David Keir Building
    • The David Keir Building (18/30 Malone Road) is #39 on the map. It hosts, among others, the School of Psychology. To find your way to the summer school, you enter the School of Psychology from Malone road. Take the elevator to the 3rd floor; the floor plan shows where the Turner room is. This is where the summer school and the colloquium will take place. For a view click here
  • The Main University Building
    • The Main Building on University Road is #1 on the map. For a view of the Lanyon building click here or here.

      The Visitors' Centre is located in the Lanyon Hall which is beside the main entrance to the Lanyon building and will host the official opening of the summer school on Monday evening.

      The newly refurbished great hall will host the dinner on the evening of Thursday the 28th of June. (The link in the above address shows an older picture).

      This map shows where in the city the university is located

How to find your way here?

There are several web-sites explaining how to come to Belfast, find your way to Queen's University and where the departments are located.

Look up these URLs:

Approx. prices:

Bus ticket from Belfast International Airport to the bust station in the city center (get off at last stop at Hotel Europe) is 5 Pounds (return ticket is 8 Pounds); a taxi from the International Airport is app. 22 Pounds.

Transport From the Europa Bus Centre to Queen's University.

On arrival at the Europa Bus Centre: 

(1) If you wish to take a TAXI, you will find a Black taxi stand at the left exit to the Europa Bus Centre. Fares range from £ 2.00 to £ 4.00 per person. Alternatively you may telephone a taxi (e.g. Fonacab: 02890 233333, Value Cabs: 02890 230000). Fares should range from £ 2.00 to £ 4.00 per taxi.

(2) If you wish to take a BUS, exit via the main entrance to the Europa Bus Centre. On the opposite side of the road lies the bus stop, next to the Beaten Docket Bar/Restaurant. Take Bus number 71. This will stop at Queens University main Building, The School of Psychology (opposite the Botanic Inn) as well as Queens Elms Halls of Residence. Fares range from 60 pence to Queens University main building to 90 pence or £1.00 to the School of Psychology or Queens Elms Halls of Residence.

To travel into the city centre form Queens take the bus numbers 61, 69 and 73 from any of the Bus stops located along the Malone Road. Fares are similar to those indicated above.

Also, remember that lo-cost airlines serve Belfast and Dublin Airports (e.g., take a look at http://www.easyJet.com/ and http://www.ryanair.ie/)

When you are here

Some participants have indicated to arrive earlier. The school of psychology will be closed on Saturday and Sunday. However, opposite the school there is a pub (Botanic Inn) which seems ideally suited for meeting the earlybirds. So Paul and Willibald will be there on Sunday 7 p.m. Anybody is welcome to stop by for a drink or meal.

The visitors centre of the University is open on Saturday but closed on Sunday-- it is worth visiting as is the old library in the main building and the "tower" gives a good view of the town. The Botanic garden is worth visiting on a Sunday; it is located between the main building and the School of Psychology.

Useful sites

Current flight info of international airport departures) 

A good starting point to all kind of informations

Links to local information, events and listings provided by the Visitor's centre

Exploring Belfast

Exploring Northern Ireland

NI weather

 

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Programme

Some information on the program of the course, the colloquium, as well as the extracurricular events.

General changes and updates

We dropped the organised pub visit on Friday (it is very crowded on Fridays). Instead we will have a dinner on Thursday in a historic ambience. Pubs like the historic Crown or many others (e.g., see here) are worth visiting though.

The tour to Giant's causeway, the distillery and some other sights on the way (perhaps http://www.interknowledge.com/northern-ireland/ukiant03.htm) will be offered at no extra costs (meals included) to all participants and will take place on Wednesday after the morning lecture.

Syllabus of the Summer School

Download the final syllabus for the course. (To read this file you will need Acrobat Reader 4)

Provisional timetable

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

9-10 a.m.

What is humour?

FACS

Humour & health

Theories of humour

Comparative study of jokes
(Davies)

Humour skills training programme

10-11 a.m.

What is humour

FACS

Humour skills training programme

Theories of humour

Comparative study of jokes
(Davies)

Concluding
Discussion

1-2 p.m.

Evolution of facial expression

Morphology of Smiling

 

Excursion to

Giants Causeway

&

Bushmills Distillery

Humour, laughter & the brain
(Wild & Rodden)

Sense of humour

11:20-5:00

C
O
L
L
O
Q
U
I
U
M

2-3 p.m.

Evolution of smiling, laughter & humour

Morphology of Laughter

Humour, laughter & the brain
(Wild & Rodden)

Sense of humour

4-5 p.m.

Development of humour in children

Humour & health

Humour in the workplace

Humour in the workplace

5-6 p.m.

Development of humour in children

Humour skills training programme

Humour skills training programme

Humour skills training programme

Some units covered in the course

  • What is "humour", what is "laughter"?
    • (Download recommended prior reading: Introductory Chapter "The sense of humour: a new look at an old concept" from The Sense of Humour: Explorations of a personality characteristic)
  • The Development of Humour in Children
  • Practical Applications of Humour
    • (Download recommended prior reading: Chapter II from Humor, Health and the Amuse System)
  • Theories of Humour
  • Learning the basics of the Facial Action Coding System--FACS
  • Smiling and laughter: The expressive pattern
    • (Download recommended prior reading: "The expressive pattern of laughter", by Ruch, W. & Ekman, P. (2001). In A.W. Kaszniak (Ed.), Emotion, qualia, and consciousness. Word Scientific Publisher. Tokyo, 426-443. )
  • The sense of humour: Approaches and measurement
    • (Download recommended prior reading: (a) Rod A. Martin: "Approaches to the sense of humor"; from The Sense of Humour, p. 14-62; read the parts relating to the approaches to the sense o fhumour; gives an overview of what has been done with some emphasis on history; (b) "Sources of variance in current humor inventories"; an evaluation of the state of the art in assessment of sense of humour; requires some background on psychometrics; (c) "Sense of humour", Manuscript by Rod Martin, gives a intro to the concept and a discussion of some scales)
  • The Comparative Study of Jokes
  • Humour, laughter, and the brain

Suggested reading for the course

Textbooks

The two textbooks by McGhee & Ruch will be provided at no extra costs.

Colloquium

The colloquium will be on Saturday, June 30. We will have about 10 presentations.

Download the final program (To read this file you will need Acrobat Reader 4)

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Course-related internet-sites

Internet resources

This internet site can be used before, during or after the summer school for a variety of purposes. I have grouped them in three categories.

  • Internet resources for individual topics
    may be consulted accompanying the individual lectures. They contain solid supplementary or illustrative information. They will support the understanding of the topics covered by the lectures. So do consult them if you want to know more about the contents of the particular unit.
  • General Internet resources
    relate to the course in general. They contain relevant and trustworthy information and will help to broaden the understanding of the area.
  • Sites to study or evaluate
    refer to the task of critically search the Internet which will be one assignment by the end of the term. This is a selection of such sites; you may find others. These sites do not necessarily contain information based on research and sometimes misrepresent the research finding. Some are press releases, some are sites of Organisations. Your task will be to figure out what type of information is valid and which ones are not.

Note. Please send me a note if one of the links is outdated.

I. Internet resources for individual topics

Topic: Measurement of the face

  • Learn more about Electromyography--EMG from the Website (well, it's a company, but there is an introduction to EMG measurement)
    • Hint. Click on Download left of Surface Electromyography: Detection and Recording to get a 10 page pdf-file of a paper on fundamental concepts of the surface EMG signal and important considerations for its detection.
  • See Automated Face Analysis, a web site describing the project of an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists and psychologists, who developed the first version of Automated Face Analysis. Automated Face Analysis quantifies subtle changes in facial motion and demonstrates concurrent validity with human observers using the Facial Action Coding System .
    • Hint. Click on "FACS Action Units" to come to a page, which provides all AUs, along with names, muscles involved, and a Photograph! This is a good online resource to memorise the AUs.

Topic: Laughter

  • Finding the brains funny bone (fMRI research on the brain mechanisms of laughter by radiologist research group headed by Dean K. Shibata at the University of Rochester Medical Center)
  • Evolution of the human smile from Scientific American
  • Entry on Laughter, Nonverbal behaviour dictionnairy, David B. Givens, Ph.D., Center for Nonverbal Studies, La Jolla, Calif., Spokane, Wash.
  • Lean more about Phonetics-- a website by Kevin Russell, Linguistics Department, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
    • Hint. Click on verious places that may help to understand the sound pcoduction during laughter and its assessment (e.g., Spectrogram Reading, Articulation of consonants and vowels, Sound wave analysis).
  • Speech research links. Laughter is not speech, but it uses the same effector organs. So its interesting to learn about speech and compare it to laughter.

Topic: Nurture vs. nature

II. General Internet resources

Discussion group

  • Humour Research mail base. An interdisciplinary forum for the discussion, debate and exchange of ideas and information associated with the study of humour in all its forms.
    • Hint: You may go there, look into the archived discussions, and follow current discussion. You may further pose questions or initiate discussions ("Meet the experts"). Don't forget to introduce yourself.

Electronic database

  • Electronic version of Rutter, Jason, 1998. "Laughingly Referred To: An Interdisciplinary Bibliography of Published Work in the Field of Humour Studies and Research", Salford Papers in Sociology No21, University of Salford (alternatively click here)
    • Hint: This is a useful and comprehensive bibliography of articles on humour and laughter (more than 3000 entries). You may want to check what articles exist for certain topics of interest to you.

Electronic dictionary

  • How are key terms of the course (like laughter, laugh, humour, wit, cheerfulness, smile, smiling etc.) defined outside psychology? Look up these and related words in the online version of a dictionary (Webster).

Internet sites on topics covered by the course

  • Humour Research by W. Ruch (University of Düsseldorf)
    • Contains information relating to the sciences of humour and laughter, such as journals, book series, scientific organisations, conferences,home pages and e-mail addresses of researchers, etc.
  • Nonverbal Communication Research Page by Marvin A. Hecht (Louisiana College)
    • A list of resources related to nonverbal research including a lift of researchers involved in nonverbal communication. Take a look at their labs and research projects.
  • The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs & Body Language cues (From Adam's-Apple-Jump to Zygomatic Smile) By David B. Givens

     

III. Sites to study or evaluate

Go through the following press releases and web-pages and discuss the validity of the claims made (in light of existing scientific evidence), quality of studies and reports presented (more sites exsit, but search for relevant sites yourself using different search engines):

This task should be picked up after the lectures have covered the basic concepts (phylogenetic development, facial expression, smiling, laughter, humour, theories of humour, sense of humour). These sites (and related ones) represent how the media react to research on humour and laughter, how theses topics are presented in popular media/press/websites, and how people who apply humour and laughter justify their usage. Critically reflect what you read and compare it with the scientific evidence. Let you inspire by the many ways how humor and laughter are thought to be beneficial but also ask question like "Is this guided by any theory?", "What is the empirical evidence to back up claims made?", if no study exists: "what kind of study would be needed to provide optimal support for this type of application?", "How would such a study need to look like/What kind of methodology should be applied"?, "Are there any other fields in which humour and laughter could be successfully applied?" In case of research reports try to critically evaluate the methodology and give alternative interpretations.

In sum, studying these sites should help you to

  • expose you to a variety of information relating to humour & laughter which should broaden the scope of what we dealt with in the lectures
  • inspire you to think of further ways how humour and laughter may play significant roles in our lifes.
  • sharpen your view to distinguish between solid ground, exxaggerated claims, and potentially promising unexplored fields.

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Last updated: June 13, 2001

visitors since June 13, 2001