(HealthDay News) -- Apes may not be ready for the cast of Saturday Night Live, but they sure love a good giggle, new research suggests.
Led by Marina Davila Ross, a primatologist at the University of Portsmouth in England, the research team tickled 22 young apes and three human babies to see how they would respond. While none of the apes would make it onto a sitcom laugh track, the vocalizations were comparable to how humans respond to similar stimulus.
The study is the first to record laugh-like behavior in apes, although there has been anecdotal evidence of such behavior in the wild, said Michael J. Owren, a team member and associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgia State University, in Atlanta.
The laughter "seemed like an expression of joy," said Davila Ross, a research fellow in the department of psychology. "It seemed to me that the subjects enjoyed the attention and the positive interaction with their caretakers, and did not show much attempt to leave when the tickling session was over." Read more...
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