Why Do Babies Laugh out Loud?

By Tom Stafford

是什么原因讓小嬰兒咯咯笑出了聲呢？因?yàn)檫@么小的孩子是無(wú)法理解大人的玩笑的。對(duì)于嬰兒為何會(huì)笑的研究多年來(lái)常常被忽視，然而這一研究也許能揭示人類大腦構(gòu)成的奧秘以及嬰幼兒探索認(rèn)知世界的過(guò)程。本文對(duì)于嬰兒為何會(huì)笑這一話題做了探討研究，值得一讀。

W hat makes babies laugh? It sounds like one of the most fun questions a researcher could investigate1. investigate: 調(diào)查，研究。, but there’s a serious scientific reason why Caspar Addyman wants to find out.

He’s not the first to ask this question. Darwin studied laughter in his infant son, and Freud formed a theory that our tendency to laugh originates in a sense of superiority.2. infant: 嬰兒，幼兒；Freud: 弗洛伊德，奧地利精神病醫(yī)師、心理學(xué)家；originate: 引發(fā)，起源于；superiority: 優(yōu)越性。So we take pleasure at seeing another’s suffering—slapstick style pratfalls and accidents being good examples—because it isn’t us.3. 我們會(huì)以他人的痛苦為樂——比如看到別人滑稽地跌坐在地或是發(fā)生意外——因?yàn)橥纯嗟娜瞬皇俏覀?。slapstick: 惡作劇，鬧?。籶ratfall: 屁股著地的坐跌，可笑的失誤。

The great psychologist of human development, Jean Piaget,thought that babies’ laughter could be used to see into their minds.4. psychologist: 心理學(xué)家；Jean Piaget: 讓·皮亞杰，法籍瑞士人，近代有名的兒童心理學(xué)家。If you laugh, you must “get the joke” to some degree—a good joke is balanced in between being completely unexpected and confusing and being predictable and boring.5. 如果你笑了，你一定是在某種程度上“找到了笑點(diǎn)”——一個(gè)好的笑話不會(huì)完全出人意料和令人不解，也不會(huì)輕易地被人猜透，使人覺得無(wú)聊，通常都是在兩者之間取平衡。Studying when babies laugh might therefore be a great way of gaining insight into how they understand the world, he reasoned.6. gain insight into: 對(duì)……深入了解，熟悉；reason: 推斷。But although he proposed7. propose: 提出（想法、理論等）。this in the 1940s, this idea remains to be properly tested. Despite the fact that some very famous investigators have studied the topic, it has been neglected by modern psychology.

Addyman, of Birkbeck, University of London, is out to change that. He believes we can use laughter to get at exactly how infants understand the world. He’s completed the world’s largest and most comprehensive survey of what makes babies laugh,presenting his initial results at the International Conference on Infant Studies, Berlin, last year.8. comprehensive: 綜合的，全方位的；initial: 最初的。Via his website he surveyed more than 1,000 parents from around the world, asking them questions about when, where and why their babies laugh.

The results are—like the research topic—heart-warming. A baby’s first smile comes at about six weeks, their first laugh at about three and a half months (although some took three times as long to laugh, so don’t worry if your baby hasn’t cracked its first cackle just yet).9. 嬰兒的第一次微笑大約出現(xiàn)在出生后的六周，他們的第一次大笑大約出現(xiàn)在出生后的三個(gè)半月（有些嬰兒要花三倍的時(shí)間才會(huì)大笑，所以如果你的孩子還沒有笑出聲來(lái)，你也不用擔(dān)心）。crack: 綻露（笑容）；cackle: 咯咯笑。Peekaboo is a sure- fire favourite for making babies laugh, but tickling is the single most reported reason that babies laugh.10. peekaboo: 躲貓貓（一種把臉一隱一現(xiàn)來(lái)逗小孩的游戲）；sure- fire: 一定的，絕對(duì)的；tickle: 撓癢癢。

Importantly, from the very first chuckle11. chuckle: 咯咯笑，輕聲笑。, the survey responses show that babies are laughing with other people, and at what they do. The mere physical sensation of something being ticklish isn’t enough.12. mere: 極小的；sensation: 感覺；ticklish: 癢的。Nor is it enough to see something disappear or appear suddenly. It’s only funny when an adult makes these things happen for the baby. This shows that way before babies walk, or talk, they—and their laughter—are social. If you tickle a baby they apparently laugh because you are tickling them, not just because they are being tickled.

What’s more, babies don’t tend to laugh at people falling over. They are far more likely to laugh when they fall over,rather than someone else, or when other people are happy,rather than when they are sad or unpleasantly surprised.From these results, Freud’s theory (which, in any case, was developed based on clinical interviews with adults, rather than any rigorous formal study of actual children)—looks dead wrong.13. clinical: 臨床的；rigorous: 嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)?shù)?，?yán)格的；dead wrong: 大錯(cuò)特錯(cuò)。

Although parents report that boy babies laugh slightly more than girl babies, both genders find mummy and daddy equally funny.

Addyman continues to collect data, and hopes that as the results become clearer he’ll be able to use his analysis to show how laughter tracks babies’ developing understanding of the world—how surprise gives way to anticipation14. anticipation: 期望，預(yù)料。, for example,as their ability to remember objects comes online.

Despite the scientific potential, baby laughter is, as a research topic, “strangely neglected”, according to Addyman.Part of the reason is the difficulty of making babies laugh reliably in the lab, although he plans to tackle15. tackle: 處理。this in the next phase of the project. But partly the topic has been neglected, he says, because it isn’t viewed as a subject for “proper” science to look into. This is a prejudice Addyman hopes to overturn16. prejudice: 偏見；overturn: 推翻，傾覆。—for him, the study of laughter is certainly no joke.