THE EFFECTS OF HUMOR ON VERBAL AND IMAGINAL PROBLEM-SOLVING

Humor is frequently associated with creativity but its role in other f orms of problem solving has received less attention. In this experimen t, humor was examined as a possible primer for enhanced performance in an imaginal and in a verbal task. Jokes and simple sentences of high or low imagery were presented prior to participants' attempts to solve either mental rotation of figures or verbal analogies. The effect of imagery, as manipulated here, was not significant. Humor, however, spe eded mental rotation and slowed performance on analogies or men, where as women's solution times were relatively unaffected Greater hemispher ic lateralization among men was considered as a possible explanation f or this pattern of results.