Scientists learn about evolution of laughter using a tickle on the tum

Evolution enabled humans to use laughter to mock others while apes simply laugh to enjoy themselves and influence others, a scientist has revealed.

Dr Marina Davila Ross, of the University of Portsmouth, has found that humans have learned to use laughter to sneer, mock and ridicule.

While Asian apes just laugh for laughter's sake African apes have learned to laugh to influence others, she said.

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The new research, published in Communicative and Integrative Biology, builds on earlier work by Dr Davila Ross which showed that humans learned to laugh from their great ape ancestors.

She said: "Humans and the African ape developed laughter further than the Asian great ape to have an effect on others.

"But something happened in the last five million years which means humans use laughter for a much wider range of situations than our primate ancestors.

"Laughter occurs in close to every imaginable form of human social interaction, including to mock others."

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Dr Davila Ross, a research fellow at the Department of Psychology, said that although laughter was present in all descendants of the great apes, the sound of laughter changed throughout evolution. She said that her research indicated that these changes in sound occurred together with changes in laughing behaviour of the species.

She explained: "Our observations showed strong differences in the use of laughter between the Asian great apes (orang utans) and the African great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos).

"Asian great apes tend to squeak more than laugh, while African apes and humans laugh clearly more often.

"Based on our findings, we can conclude that 10 to 16 million years ago laughter was a sound with limited use. It probably had little effect on the way others behave.

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"Our findings suggest two important periods of selection-driven changes in laughter of great apes and humans."

Dr Davila Ross and her colleagues Michael Owren, of Georgia State University, and Elke Zimmermann, of University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, also showed that sounds other than laughter can evolve in the context of tickling and play.

Other mammals, including flying foxes, make sounds when they are tickled but they are not necessarily laughing.