Internet TechNote December 8, 2007
The purpose is to explore the statistical basis for a possible patent application based on the 4D model.
Two humor appreciation internet surveys ran in 2007, the humor lines were interpreted according to the 4D model and the scores analyzed against age and gender variation. The analysis supported age prediction with statistical significance but no significant gender difference. The statistics in effect provided initial validation.
Starting from a definition of humor as "The sudden falsification of perceived threat", the four types of drives coincide with types of animal aggression and by extension threat, since a threat induces either aggression or fear. Each type was divided into internalizing/externalizing describing fear or aggression respectively. Projecting the classification on humor, jokes and
lines were selected from the internet and classified, equal number of jokes for each type and division were selected and included in two internet humor appreciation surveys. The surveys ran over a period of two years, participation was solicited by Google advertising. The first survey had 16 humor lines and attracted 2704 participants. The plot below shows humor type preference for six age groups, data trends clearly show agreement between predicted and measured preference.
Fig. N1-1 Age trends of 16-line humor appreciation survey.
The second survey had 40 lines of humor and 50 items for estimating the Five Factor Model (FFM) personality assessment, the cost of advertising was much higher than the first and participation slower, therefore scoring stopped after 146 subjects. Nevertheless, the collected data had a higher index of reliability and showed more variance but similar trends to the first survey.
Fig. N1-2 Age trends of 40-line humor appreciation survey.
The gender difference was not statistically significant and humor link with personality FFM scores was not discussed.
