...but prefer sophisticated humour

Women are slower to get jokes than men, but when they do, they find them much more rewarding, research suggests.

Brain scientist Allan Reiss, said women have lower expectations that a gag will be funny, but use more of their brain power to process it.

And they were shown to prefer sophisticated comedy, such as story-based humour, to easier laughs such as slapstick.

Professor Reiss, who conducted the research at California’s Stanford University, said: ‘We found greater activity in the prefrontal cortex in women, indicating women are processing stimuli that involve language areas of the brain… Our findings fit the stereotype of how men and women react to humour.’

In contrast, he said, men in general expect to get the joke — but get more depressed when they don’t.

His research was reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend, although his scientific paper on the subject was actually published in 2005.

And he used only a small sample size of ten men and ten women, whom he showed 70 black-and-white cartoons.

While wired up to a machine showing which parts of the brain were active, the subjects pressed buttons to indicate how amusing they found each joke.

Professor Reiss is now performing similar tests on children to try to determine whether the differences result from nature or nurture.

Published: 1 Feb 2010