Now, see, THAT was funny!

Here's the tricky bit, though. The article says,

"Researchers used a verbal joke test developed in 1983 and used in other humor studies. Mak added a new element, though, by showing participants cartoons from the Ferd'nand comic strip, and asking them to choose between four panels to locate the funny ending. Three of the choices for each cartoon were the wrong ones, created by an artist for the study.

"This wasn't a study about what people find funny. It was a study about whether they get what's supposed to be funny," Carpenter said.

I think it's a serious flaw to use the Ferd'nand strip. I get that they were asking people about what's supposed to be funny rather than what is funny, but seriously, sometimes it's hard to tell with that comic! And I've always thought that. Even before I got old. ;)

Also, obviously, I didn't see any of the researchers' statistical analysis, but young people doing 6% better on verbal jokes and 14% better on comics doesn't seem very significant when you're talking about a study population of only 80 people...

ha ha i guess