I've been considering my mind's data structures as well recently.
I find it, normal?, that humorous metaphors work best. I assume it's easier on the psyche and 'funner' to recall.
I find it, normal?, that humorous metaphors work best. I assume it's easier on the psyche and 'funner' to recall.
I on the other hand suck at humor. I find if I try to make a humorous association it seems forced, which does work to some extent, but leaves me feeling a bit forced during recall, so I don't find that worth it. However, when it is naturally funny or amusing, you better believe it sticks.
I suspect this has to do with anxiety. Humor isn't the opposite of anxiety (that would be closer to hypnosis, I would guess) but humor breaks tension like cutting melted butter. So much so, if you get pulled over, and if you can make the officer laugh within a minute, your chances of getting a ticket are nearly zero.
There is clearly something going on here, but what it is, I admit I'm in the dark.
If you're the kind that can find humor in everything, especially puns and similar, you've very lucky.
For me, I find that unless the joke has been expressed to others I simply forget the attempted association. Even if it's a bad joke or bad association, the expression portion helps to make the association of humor with the concept/memory more concrete.
>I suspect this has to do with anxiety. Humor isn't the opposite of anxiety (that would be closer to hypnosis, I would guess) but humor breaks tension like cutting melted butter. So much so, if you get pulled over, and if you can make the officer laugh within a minute, your chances of getting a ticket are nearly zero.
This is a good point. I seem to recall reading somewhere that there a variety of reasons we find things funny but a large one has to do with inhibiting flight/fight response after a close call.
>There is clearly something going on here, but what it is, I admit I'm in the dark.
>If you're the kind that can find humor in everything, especially puns and similar, you've very lucky.
If I take an extreme view (one which I don't fully believe but will use for illustration), then humor of a particular variety helps us to recognize situations that are dangerous/seemingly dangerous, but survivable, if we can recall what decisions extricated us from that situation previously. I feel like that's heading in the direction of creating strong, positive, associations.