Why does the audience laugh

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Please click confirm to resume now. Interestingly, Professor Scott and her team do not know if participants laughed at the jokes they heard during their study. All they know is how funny they rated them. Nico has noticed people holding back their laughter when they find something amusing and theorises that self-consciousness gets in the way.

Just as the absence of laughter does not necessarily mean someone's jokes are not amusing, the presence of laughter does not always indicate comedic genius. We do also laugh at jokes and comedy, but that's a subset in the laughter that we produce.

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