The Humor-Art Connection:
Vitalist Humor and Artistic Preference
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Final Report of MMAM-2/ITCHS Vitalist Humor Assessment
This final report covers a second ITCHS/MMAM empirical experiment conducted in spring 2017. The first experiment, hereafter MMAM-1, tested the hypothesis that there is a relationship between appreciation for forms of Shakespearean tragedic language and appreciation for painterly qualities like Light, Motion, and Abstraction. [See Final Report of MMAM-1/ITCHS Shakespearean Tragedic Language Assessment.] The second experiment, hereafter MMAM-2, tested the hypothesis that there is a relationship between forms of Langerian and Bergsonian Vitalism and painterly subjects like Ships, Individuals, Nature, and People Groups. (For a full discussion of Vitalism see Chapter 2, “Langerian Momentary Vitalism,” Four Seasons: Variations in American Vitalist Film Comedy.
All the same testing procedures were used in MMAM-2 as in MMAM-1. The differences between the two experiments were entirely substitutionary. MMAM-2 substituted ITCHS’ Langer-Bergson Vitalist Humor Test b (LBVHT-b) for ITCHS’ Shakespearean Tragedic Language Assessment (STLA) in MMAM-1. MMAM-2 substituted 6 categories of painterly subjects for the 6 categories of painterly techniques in MMAM-1.
A new set of 24 paintings were tested, including a number from a temporary exhibit, “Old Favorites,” then on display in Gallery 2. (See Appendix A for a complete list of paintings and their classification by subject.) Selection of paintings and identification of which category of painterly subject each painting represented was done entirely by ITCHS staff.
The Final Report for MMAM-1 should be consulted for all other description of procedures used for MMAM-2 as analogous to the procedures of MMAM-1. Ultimately, 41 volunteer responses for the MMAM-2 experiment were useful.
The change of art appreciation tested is significant. It derives from ITCHS’ understanding that humor is much more related to social realities while tragedic language is much more related to fundamental forces in nature and humanity that can lead to results which particularly the young should be cautioned lie within the human condition. Choice of painterly subject (inherently a social distinction) is thus much more closely related to humor and choice of painterly quality (inherently related to natural though invisible force) much more related to tragedic realities.
Results
Formally, the hypothesis of MMAM-2 was that appreciation of Vitalist Interests was related to appreciation for painterly subjects. In numerous book-length works and in many reports of experiments, ITCHS has identified four principal forms of Vitalist humor: Tenacity, Potential, Creativity, and Performance. These forms come in two voices, Langerian (laughing with) and Bergsonian (laughing at) humor voices. Interest is defined as the choice of either voice of one of the four forms. In LBVHT-b, there are 12 questions, each a pair of jokes, the respondent to choose one or the other as funnier. All 12 questions pit jokes of the same voice but different form of Vitalist humor, an equal number of each voice being represented in the test overall.
For MMAM-2, there were then 4 Interests corresponding to the 4 forms of Vitalist humor, and there were 6 painterly subject categories. Thus, there were 4 x 6 = 24 ways in which Interest could relate to subject. And, therefore, MMAM-2 required the statistical analysis of 24 separate tests, each of which could either show a high-confidence relationship between two appreciations or could fail to show such a high-confidence result.
As with MMAM-1, each of these 24 tests could create a high-confidence result either as a linear regression or as a parabolic regression.
For the 24 tests of MMAM-2, then, 8 produced high confidence (95%+) results, some of them very high (99%+). (See Appendix B.)
Technically, a single high-confidence result would be indicative of the hypothesis being validated. In light of 8 high-confidence results, some of which are in fact very high, ITCHS concludes that the hypothesis of the hypothesis has been amply confirmed.
Conclusions
The first and foremost conclusion ITCHS would like to express is our thanks to MMAM and to its wonderful volunteers who we now consider also to be ITCHS associates in a major discovery that to our knowledge has been nowhere suggested in previous empirical study. We also thank all those whose contributions have made MMAM possible in Winona.
The second conclusion, as already stated, is that the hypothesis has been amply confirmed, and with that a third conclusion that the confirmation represents a potential breakthrough in understanding art appreciation.
The fourth conclusion is, however, more within ITCHS expertise: this confirmation is likely to represent a potential breakthrough in understanding literary appreciations. ITCHS intends to pursue the possibility of such literary breakthroughs, which in the normal course of things would be reported at ITCHS.org. That website currently is visited by nationals from better than 80 countries a month (in September, we were applauding the particularly powerful representation of Ukrainians and citizens of the Russian Federation).
Fourth, many of the results are not particularly surprising. This is good news for two reasons: 1) it further validates the testing procedure, already validated by high-confidence results, and 2) it provides objective, empirical evidence for what one might already have believed but still be unwilling to put full confidence in.
For example, for the Ship at Sea category, the paintings involved are all of ships under stress (taut sails, heavy seas, pitched decks). There is a strong correlation between appreciation for these paintings and Tenacity Interest. A ship that isn’t tenacious under stress and adversity is, of course, a ship headed for the bottom, and the paintings involved were not prophetic of such demise.
As this example should suggest, MMAM-2 is a first-of-the-kind exploratory investigation. There is every reason to hope that the same methodology can be increasingly accurately employed. For example, the rather vague idea of Ships at Sea can be replaced by Ships in Rough Weather and then contrasted with Ships in Balmy Seas.
Fifth, half the 8 high-confidence results were parabolic rather than linear correlations. This is a similar result to that found in MMAM-1 for painterly qualities appreciation. It is often the case that very high and very low levels of the independent variable (for MMAM-2, Vitalist Interest) contrast with medial or middlish levels of artistic appreciation. This was a great theoretical surprise for MMAM-1. By MMAM-2, the parabolic correlations have become, perhaps, expectable.
And sixth, and finally, there are more complex hypotheses that can be tested with the database of MMAM-2. These too may be investigated by ITCHS and reported at ITCHS.org.