Humor Diagnosis

Diagnostic tests are evaluated using two criteria--sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity refers to the ability of a test to find what it is looking for. Specificity is the ability of a test to distinguish what it's looking for from other findings that might give similar results. For example, a test for strep throat with a high sensitivity will almost always come back positive when strep throat is present. If it has a high specificity it will almost never come back positive when strep throat is absent. But a test with a high sensitivity and low specificity may come back positive even when the patient does not have strep throat.

It occurred to me that every time someone contemplates saying something funny, they must run their own internal diagnostic test. If they conclude that what they have to say is sufficiently funny, they will make the joke. However, the sensitivity and/or specificity of certain people's humor indicators is/are a bit low.

Case Study 1: JDR is a 24 year old male presenting with extremely high humor sensitivity and somewhat low specificity. Each time a thought strikes him as having potential humor value, the result of his internal humor indicator comes back positive. As a result, a funny thought never passes through his brain that doesn't make it to his mouth. On the other hand, too many false positives lead to an outpouring of failed jokes and minor embarrasment.

Case Study 2: JKR is a 26 year old male presenting with somewhat low humor sensitivity and normal specificity. He almost never tells an unsuccessful joke. The downside--he doesn't get as many laughs as JDR.