Evolutionary Science: A Laughing Matter

A recent study into the behavior of Homo Sapiens' closest great ape relatives reveals fresh insight into the evolutionary aspects of an activity we might otherwise have thought of as distinctly human: laughter.

In a study recently published in the journal Current Biology and highlighted in The Guardian, Princeton psychologist Marina Davila Ross collected recordings of the sounds made by infant and juvenile chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas when tickled by their handlers. The sound patterns and their corresponding behaviors were analyzed in comparison to each other as well as to comparable recordings of human laughter.

Davila Ross's analysis of degrees of similarity and difference in the recordings resulted in the construction of a type of "laughter tree" among the different species. This construct was found to very closely match our understanding of how we interrelate with these other species on the evolutionary tree. 

The critical takeaway from this study is that the development of laughter as a physiological response to amusement or enjoyment likely predates our species by a few million years.

While it may have required the advent of humankind to bring The Three Stooges into being, laughter may have been the best medicine long before it was fashionable to be bipedal. And that's no monkey business.