On the Transdisciplinary Field of Humor Research

Abstract

Based on formal theories of humor and a computational semantic technology for information and text meaning analysis, computers could be programmed to detect and generate humor and determine the patterns of individual humor preferences both for the joke tellers or posters and for the people that comment on jokes. These patterns do not only reveal information on a person's sensitivities to various spheres of life, which, in turn, aggregated, when necessary, over any number of individuals, can be used for targeted advertising, focused marketing, and possibly political campaigns and definitely for cyber security, but also provide a solid cognitive and emotional foundation for friendlier human computer interaction. The paper introduces the rationale and theory for rigorous study of humor that provides a foundation for the outlined research.