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Laughter and Tickling Laughter is physiologically spasmodic, rhythmic, vocalized, expiratory, and involuntary. Stearns discusses in some detail the neural pathways of the tickle-laughter reflex arc. Regarding the structure of tickling, Stearns defers to Houssay, who ``contends that [tickling] is due to `simultaneous excitation of both touch and pain receptors... because tickling cannot be produced after section of the spinothalamic tract ; also, tickling cannot be provoked when the circulation of an extremity is arrested, which first eliminates the sensation of touch, and with it the tickling sensation. The pain sensation is eliminated later. In short, tickling involves simultaneous sensation of touch and of pain. This is perfectly isomorphic to the elements N and V of the present theory of humor. Pain, after all, is a violation of physical integrity and comfort; these are principles which we certainly care about quite viscerally. Pain is essentially a sensory representation of a violation of ones bodys natural order. It represents V, a violation of moral principle, reduced to the level of a physiological response to a physical stimulus. Touch sensations, on the other hand, provide an internal representation of the external, touched stimulus for the organism to process. This representation of the stimulus is painless by itself; it is a representation of a normal contact with a stimulus, N. The fact that tickling requires a sensation of pain as well as a ``normal touch sensation, is a remarkable piece of evidence that appears to support the present theory of humor. The physiology of tickling is actually a restatement at the physiological level of the present theory of humor. Indeed, this suggests that physical tickling and more cerebral and cognitive forms of humor may have the same basic representation in the human nervous system, and that biological implementations of the two may at least be evolutionarily related. | 
