On pleasures of the mind related to humour and insight problem solving: an investigation of people’s awareness of what they like and why

This study examines the cognitive and affective commonalities and differences between humour and insight problems, focusing on the reasons given by the participants to explain their preferences. For both cartoons (study 1) and insight problems (study 2), the participants gave more reasons for liking than disliking something and the motivations for liking versus disliking did not always correspond. Many overlaps emerged between cartoons and insight puzzles in the categories relating to Curiosity, Violation of expectation, Virtuosity, Happiness related to superficial aspects and to content type confirming an overall similarity between these two “pleasures of the mind”. They are nevertheless distinct in terms of certain aspects. For instance, the most common reason for liking a cartoon was that it elicited a sense of general happiness and Lack of surprise more often motivated dislike for a cartoon, whereas Lack of joy of verification was the main reason for disliking an insight puzzle.