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Different Types of Laughter Modulate Connectivity
within Distinct Parts of the Laughter Perception Network
Dirk Wildgruber1,3., Diana P. Szameitat1., Thomas Ethofer1,3, Carolin Bru¨ck1, Kai Alter2,
Wolfgang Grodd4, Benjamin Kreifelts1*
1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Eberhard Karls University of Tu¨bingen, Tu¨bingen, Germany, 2 Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle
upon Tyne, United Kingdom, 3 Department for Biomedical Magnetic Resonance, Eberhard Karls University of Tu¨bingen, Tu¨bingen, Germany, 4 Department of Psychiatry
and Psychotherapy, University of Aachen, Aachen, Germany

Abstract
Laughter is an ancient signal of social communication among humans and non-human primates. Laughter types with
complex social functions (e.g., taunt and joy) presumably evolved from the unequivocal and reflex-like social bonding signal
of tickling laughter already present in non-human primates. Here, we investigated the modulations of cerebral connectivity
associated with different laughter types as well as the effects of attention shifts between implicit and explicit processing of
social information conveyed by laughter using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Complex social laughter
types and tickling laughter were found to modulate connectivity in two distinguishable but partially overlapping parts of
the laughter perception network irrespective of task instructions. Connectivity changes, presumably related to the higher
acoustic complexity of tickling laughter, occurred between areas in the prefrontal cortex and the auditory association
cortex, potentially reflecting higher demands on acoustic analysis associated with increased information load on auditory
attention, working memory, evaluation and response selection processes. In contrast, the higher degree of socio-relational
information in complex social laughter types was linked to increases of connectivity between auditory association cortices,
the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and brain areas associated with mentalizing as well as areas in the visual associative
cortex. These modulations might reflect automatic analysis of acoustic features, attention direction to informative aspects of
the laughter signal and the retention of those in working memory during evaluation processes. These processes may be
associated with visual imagery supporting the formation of inferences on the intentions of our social counterparts. Here, the
right dorsolateral precentral cortex appears as a network node potentially linking the functions of auditory and visual
associative sensory cortices with those of the mentalizing-associated anterior mediofrontal cortex during the decoding of
social information in laughter.
Citation: Wildgruber D, Szameitat DP, Ethofer T, Bru¨ck C, Alter K, et al. (2013) Different Types of Laughter Modulate Connectivity within Distinct Parts of the
Laughter Perception Network. PLoS ONE 8(5): e63441. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441
Editor: Hengyi Rao, University of Pennsylvania, United States of America
Received October 9, 2012; Accepted April 4, 2013; Published May 8, 2013
Copyright: ß 2013 Wildgruber et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This study was financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG WI 2101/2-1 and DFG SZ 267/1-1; ULR: http://www.dfg.de) and the
Open Access Publishing Fund of Tuebingen University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of
the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* E-mail: benjamin.kreifelts@med.uni-tuebingen.de
. These authors contributed equally to this work.

In a previous report based on the same fMRI data set as the
present study and focusing on temporal and frontal brain regions
[7], we delineated brain areas associated with the perception of
these presumably evolutionary different laughter types. Complex
social laughter types (CSL, i.e., joyful and taunting laughter) which
were termed ‘‘emotional’’ laughter types in our previous report [7]
elicited stronger cerebral responses in the anterior rostral
mediofrontal cortex (arMFC) known to be activated during
mentalizing tasks (i.e., inferring states of minds or intentions,
[8]). Tickling laughter, in contrast, led to a stronger activation of
the auditory association cortex presumably reflecting the higher
acoustic complexity of the rapid and high-pitched tickling laughter
[9] (see also Table S1). Similar activations of the auditory cortex
have been described in connection with the perception of affective
vocalizations including laughter [5,10–13] and were found to be
stronger for laughter as compared to speech [14]. In the
neighboring research area of emotional prosody perception,

Introduction
Laughter is an evolutionary old communication signal with high
relevance for social interactions [1]. Tickling laughter is thought to
be a more reflex-like behavior confined to the context of tickling
and play which enforces play behavior and social bonding [2].
This laughter type is already present in non-human primates [3].
In humans, laughter has diversified beyond the primordial reflexlike laughter which is induced by tickling or play and which is
related to play maintenance [4] and encompasses laughter types
with both more complex social functions and positive as well as
negative connotations (e.g., joy or taunt). The term ‘‘complex
social laughter’’ refers to the fact that, in contrast to tickling
laughter, these laughter types are produced in a wide variety of
social situations and can be used in a conscious and goal-directed
manner to influence and modify the attitudes and behaviors of our
social counterparts [5,6].

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stronger activations for emotional as compared to neutral speech
melody have been demonstrated to be significantly associated with
acoustic complexity [15]. Additionally, task-related focusing on the
social information in the laughter signal increased activation in the
orbitolateral part of the inferior frontal gyrus (olIFG) as well as the
posterior rostral mediofrontal cortex (prMFC). As previous
functional brain imaging studies on task-related effects during
laughter perception were restricted to the perisylvian cortex, insula
and amygdala [11,12] and did not report task-related activation
changes in these brain regions, the results of our previous study
were discussed in relation to task-induced effects in studies on the
perception of other signals of nonverbal vocal communication of
emotional information: Activations in the olIFG seem to reflect
explicit evaluation of social information in the nonverbal vocal
signal parallel to neuroimaging studies on perception of emotional
speech melody [16–22], attention direction to emotional prosody
[23], working memory for prosodic cues [24,25] and retrieval of
memories associated with informative acoustic cues [26,27].
PrMFC activation, on the other hand, appears consistent with
the association of this region with focusing of attention and action
monitoring [8,28–31].
Recently, the notion that the neural substrates of cognitive
functions in health and disease are also reflected in dynamic
changes of connectivity between distinct and often distant brain
regions has been supported by a fast growing amount of empirical
evidence [32,33]. In the area of speech comprehension and
production, first attempts have been made to delineate patterns of
brain connectivity underlying these cognitive functions [34]. With
regard to non-verbal vocal cues (e.g., laughter or speech melody)
available data is scarce: Ethofer and colleagues found evidence for
a parallel flow of information within regions sensitive to explicit
evaluation of emotional prosody from the right posterior temporal
cortex to the bilateral olIFG using dynamic causal modeling [19].
In a recent study, Leitman and colleagues [35] described a
frontotemporal network for processing of emotional prosody
where cue saliency inversely modulated connectivity between the
right IFG and the auditory processing regions in the right middle/
posterior superior temporal cortex. With respect to the perception
of laughter, to our knowledge only one study of brain connectivity
[36] has been performed previously. Here, laughter and crying
were used as nonverbal affective stimuli in contrast to control
sounds. No previous study, however, addressed different types of
laughter specifically.
Therefore, it was the aim of the present fMRI study to
investigate modulations of neural connectivity between brain
regions engaged in the perception of different types of laughter
(i.e., joyful, taunting and tickling) to further elucidate the
underpinnings of the neural processing of different aspects of the
laughter signal (i.e., complexity of socio-relational content and
acoustic complexity) and of different states of attention with regard
to the social information carried in the laughter signal employing
psycho-physiological interaction (PPI) analyses [37,38]. Attention
allocation towards or away from social information in laughter was
modulated by two different tasks (i.e., laughter type categorization
and laughter bout counting).
Based on the presently sole pertinent PPI analysis by Leitman
and colleagues [35], we cautiously hypothesized that the lower
degree of complex social information of tickling laughter, when
interpreted as a lower degree of cue saliency when compared to
CSL, would be associated with stronger connectivity between the
right IFG and the right middle/posterior superior temporal gyrus
(STG). A second tentative hypothesis was based on the study of
Ethofer and colleagues [19] demonstrating flow of information
among regions with stronger responses during explicit evaluation
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of emotional prosody. As the increased responses during laughter
type categorization observed in the right pSTS and bilateral olIFG
in our previous analysis [7] bear a striking resemblance to the
activations observed by Ethofer and colleagues, we hypothesized
that the explicit evaluation of social information in laughter would
increase the connectivity between the right pSTS and bilateral
olIFG. Finally, based on previous research indicating activation of
the bilateral amygdalae through laughter [11–13], we defined this
region as an additional region of interest for our analyses of
hemodynamic activation and connectivity.

Materials and Methods
Participants
18 right-handed participants (9 m, 9 f, mean age 6 SD: 26.0
years 63.4 years) were included in the study. Handedness was
assessed using the Edinburgh inventory [39]. None of the
participants had a history of neurological or psychiatric illness,
of substance abuse, of impaired hearing, or was on any
medication. Vision was normal or corrected to normal in all
participants.

Ethics Statement
The study was approved by the University of Tu¨bingen ethical
review board and was performed in accordance with the
Declaration of Helsinki. All participants gave written informed
consent according to the guidelines of the University of Tu¨bingen
ethical review board prior to their inclusion in the present study.

Stimulus Material
Laughter sequences portraying three types of laughter (joy
(JOY), taunt (TAU), tickling (TIC); see Sounds S1, S2, and S3 for
exemplars) served as stimulus material. The laughter sequences
were produced by professional actors using an auto induction
method based on an example scenario describing a situation of
social communication [40]. For each type of laughter the actors
were provided with one example scenario. In an independent
behavioral study it was ascertained that all stimuli included in the
present study could be identified well above chance level [40]. The
stimulus material was balanced in terms of expressed laughter type
(JOY, TAU, TIC) and speaker sex. All stimuli were normalized
with respect to mean acoustic energy. Stimulus duration was
balanced across laughter types (mean duration 6 SD: JOY:
7.56 s61.59 s; TAU: 7.48 s61.73 s; TIC: 7.74 s61.25 s). The
resulting stimulus set consisted of 60 laughter sequences (range:
3.2–9.2 s) with 20 stimuli per laughter type. A summary of the
acoustic characteristics of the laughter bouts used in the present
study is given in Table S1.

Experimental Design
The fMRI experiment consisted of four runs with 30 trials each
within the framework of an event-related design. All stimuli were
presented during two different tasks: 1.) explicit processing of social
information in the form of a laughter type categorization task
(CAT) and 2.) implicit processing of social information in the form
of a bout counting task (COU), where participants had to judge
how many bouts the laughter sequence consisted of. Participants
were instructed to count silently during the bout counting task and
not to laugh during the fMRI experiment. A laughter bout was
defined as the part of the laughter sequence from the start of a
sequence to the first inhaled breath, or the part of the sequence
between two inhaled breaths. The fMRI experiment was preceded
by a short training session outside the scanner room during which
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The laughter sequences were presented binaurally via magnetic
resonance compatible headphones with piezoelectric signal
transmission [41]. Visual cues (fixation cross, classification scale)
were back-projected onto a translucent screen (projection size ca.
80665 cm) placed ca. 2.5 meters from the participants’ head. A
mirror system mounted on the head coil allowed participants to
view the visual cues.

participants practiced both tasks with 12 laughter sequences which
were not part of the stimulus set of the main experiment.
During the fMRI experiment, the tasks alternated between runs.
The sequence of tasks was balanced across participants. Stimulus
presentation was pseudo-randomized within and across runs,
balanced for laughter type, number of laughter bouts per
sequence, and speaker sex. 120 overall trials were interspersed
with 12 null events to decrease the effect of stimulus expectation.
Each trial started with the presentation of a laughter sequence
which was followed by a horizontal scale with three categories (i.e.,
joy, taunt, tickle for the laughter type judgment and 3, 4, W (W for
neither 3 nor 4) for the laughter bout counting task). Participants
had a response window of 4 s to convey their decisions by pressing
one of three buttons on a fiber optic system (LumiTouch, Photon
Control, Burnaby, Canada) with their right index, middle, or ring
finger. The response window was followed by a variable inter-trial
interval (range: 0.8 s–10.8 s). This resulted in stimulus onset
asynchronies ranging from 14 s to 34 s (null events with a duration
of 16 s included). The stimulus onset was jittered relative to the
scan onset in steps of 0.5 s ( = J scans). The arrangement of
categories on the response scales was fully permuted resulting in
six different scales for each task. This was done in order to avoid
lateralization effects caused by motor responses or possible
laterality effects in the perception of emotionally valenced
information. The different scales were balanced across participants. The experimental design is illustrated in Figure 1.

Image Acquisition
1200 functional images were recorded for each participant using
a 1.5 T whole body scanner (Siemens AVANTO; Siemens,
Erlangen, Germany) with an echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequence
(repetition time (TR) = 2 s, echo time (TE) = 40 ms, matrix = 642,
and flip angle = 90 degrees) covering the whole cerebrum (field of
view (FOV) = 192 mm6192 mm, 24 axial slices, 4 mm slice
thickness and 1 mm gap, continuous slice acquisition in descending order). Measurements preceding T1 equilibrium were excluded
by discarding the first 5 EPI images of each run. For offline
correction of distortions of the EPI images a static field map
(TR = 487 ms, TEs = 5.28 and 10.04 ms) was acquired in every
participant. High-resolution T1-weighted images were obtained
using a magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo
(MPRAGE) sequence (FOV = 256 mm6256 mm, 176 slices, 1mm slice thickness, no gap, flip angle 15 degrees, TR = 1980 ms,
TE = 3.93 ms and matrix size = 2562).

Figure 1. Experimental design. The figure shows two exemplary experimental trials (A, B) and the factorial nature of the design (C). (A) illustrates
the laughter type categorization task (CAT) where the participants had to decide which type of laughter they heard: the trial starts with the
presentation of a laughter sequence (here: joyful laughter, JOY) followed by a response scale with the three laughter type categories (‘‘Freude’’ = JOY;
‘‘Kitzel’’ = tickling laughter, TIC; ‘‘Hohn’’ = taunting laughter, TAU) and a variable inter-trial interval. (B) exemplifies the laughter bout counting task
(COU) where the participants had to decide of how many laughter bouts the laughter sequence consisted: the laughter sequence (here: TIC) is
followed by a response scale with three response categories (‘‘30, ‘‘40, ‘‘W’’ = any other number of laughter bouts) and the inter-trial interval. Durations
on the time axis indicate durations of the stimulus presentation, response window and inter-trial interval. (C) Experimental design: an equal number
(n = 20) of JOY, TAU and TIC stimuli are each presented under two task conditions (CAT, COU) leading to total number of 120 trials within an
orthogonal factorial design.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441.g001

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of k$25. Corrections for multiple comparisons were performed
based on random field theory [45] for the whole brain. For
p,0.05, corrected for the family-wise error (FWE) at the cluster
level, this corresponds to cluster size thresholds of k$55 (CSL vs.
TIC) and k$54 (CAT vs. COU).
All regions with differential activation during perception of CSL
and TIC or stronger activation during the CAT condition were
further tested for interactions between laughter type (CSL/TIC)
and task (CAT/COU) on the level of hemodynamic activation in
order to identify potential task-specific laughter type effects. To
this end, mean parameter estimates were extracted from all
differentially activated regions and submitted to a 262-factorial
analysis of variance (ANOVA) with laughter type (CSL/TIC) and
task (CAT/COU) as within-subject factors. All resulting p values
were corrected for potential violations of the assumption of
sphericity employing the method of Greenhouse and Geisser [46].
In order to investigate potential confounding effects of laughter
type-specific effects of task difficulty, an additional parametric
analysis modeling task difficulty in a stimulus-wise manner was
run. To this end, the mean laughter type categorization and bout
counting hit rates from the present experiment were calculated for
each stimulus as an estimate of task difficulty for the respective
stimulus. Then, contrasts were defined using the stimulus-wise
mean hit rates as a parametric regressor. This was done under the
assumption that a stimulus with a low hit rate is more difficult to
categorize/count than a stimulus with a high hit rate and that
there would be a linear relationship between categorization/
counting difficulty and the BOLD response. The analysis was
performed for each task separately to assess task-specific difficulty
effects as well as for both tasks together to assess general effects of
task difficulty. Again, second-level random effects analyses were
performed with activations reported at a height threshold of
p,0.001, uncorrected, and an extent threshold of k$63 (general
task difficulty contrast), k$51 (CAT difficulty contrast), k$64
(COU difficulty contrast), corresponding to p,0.05 FWE corrected for multiple comparisons across the whole brain at the cluster
level.
PPI analyses. As a second step in the analysis, the brain
regions exhibiting significant differential responses to CSL and
TIC as well as those brain regions with significantly stronger
responses during the CAT condition were defined as seed regions
for ensuing PPIs. A PPI analysis approach was selected for
assessing modulations of connectivity because, in contrast to other
approaches for the investigation of cerebral connectivity (e.g.,
dynamic causal modeling), they allow whole-brain analyses
without constraints on the target regions involved in modulations
of connectivity with a given seed region. Such an approach
appears justified in instances when it is uncertain if all brain
regions involved in the cerebral network to be investigated have
been reliably identified, which is the case with the cerebral
network processing different types of human laughter. For each
seed region the enhancement of connectivity during the perception
of CSL as opposed to TIC (CSL.TIC), during the perception of
TIC as opposed to CSL (TIC.CSL) and during laughter type
categorization as opposed to laughter bout counting (CAT.COU)
was investigated. Please note that these comparisons between
experimental conditions are relative. Thus, a relative enhancement of connectivity under condition A compared to condition B
can also be considered as a decrease in connectivity under
condition B as compared to condition A. Therefore, in the PPI
analysis the contrast CAT,COU was used to investigate
decreases in connectivity during laughter type categorization as
compared to laughter bout counting. Differential connectivity

Image Analysis
SPM2 software (Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, London, UK; http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm) was used
for the analysis of the functional images.
Image preprocessing. Prior to statistical analysis of the
functional MR images the following preprocessing steps were
performed: motion correction, unwarping by use of a static field
map, slice time correction to the middle slice (12th slice) and
coregistration with the anatomical data. The individual realignment parameters were checked to exclude participants with head
motion exceeding 3 mm. However, head motion lay below this
critical value for all participants. The MR images were normalized
to the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space [42] using a
transformation matrix that was calculated on the basis of the
structural T1-weighted 3-D data set of each participant and
subsequently applied to the functional images (resampled voxel
size: 36363 mm3). Finally, data were smoothed with a Gaussian
filter 10-mm full width half maximum (FWHM).
Analytical strategy. As a first step, functional regions of
interest (ROI) for the ensuing connectivity analysis were defined
based on their differential activation patterns to the degree of
complex social information or acoustic complexity imbued in the
laughter signal or based on stronger activation during explicit
evaluation of social information in laughter via categorical analysis
of cerebral responses.
As a second step, dynamic alterations in connectivity due to
different degrees of complex social information and acoustic
complexity in the laughter signal as well as due to the focusing of
attention towards or away from the social information imbedded
in the laughter signal were systematically investigated employing a
separate psycho-physiological interaction (PPI) analysis taking
each of the ROIs as the seed region separately.
Categorical analysis of cerebral responses. Each trial
was modeled as a separate regressor in the form of a boxcar
function with the length of the respective laughter sequence. Thus,
each individual model contained 120 event-related regressors.
Events were time-locked to stimulus onset. To minimize lowfrequency components data were high-pass filtered with a cut-off
frequency of 1/128 Hz. The error term was modeled as an
autoregressive process with a coefficient of 0.2 [43] and an
additional white noise component [44] to account for serial
autocorrelations.
Brain regions sensitive to a higher degree of complex social
information carried in the laughter signal were identified by
contrasting cerebral responses to complex social laughter
(CSL = mean of JOY and TAU) types against those to tickling
laughter (TIC). The reverse contrast (i.e., TIC vs. CSL) was
employed to identify brain regions sensitive to the higher degree of
acoustic complexity of tickling laughter. Differential responses to
the two CSL types were investigated via the contrasts (JOY.
TAU) and (TAU.JOY) in order to detect brain responses specific
for the respective CSL type and to detect potential biases in the
contrasts of complex social and tickling laughter through only one
of the two CSL types. Additionally, areas with stronger cerebral
responses during explicit processing of social information in
laughter sounds were identified by contrasting cerebral activation
under the laughter type categorization (CAT) condition against
brain activation under the laughter bout counting condition
(COU). Please note that the reverse contrast COU.CAT was not
used to define ROIs as it should reveal brain areas involved in
counting which the present study expressly was not focused on.
A second-level random effects analysis was performed for the
statistical evaluation of group data. Activations are reported at a
height threshold of p,0.001, uncorrected, and an extent threshold
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Additionally, ROI analyses centered on the bilateral amygdalae
(as defined by the AAL toolbox, [50]) were performed with
heightened sensitivity (height threshold p,0.01 and extent
threshold k$3) for all contrasts of interest (see above) both on
the level of hemodynamic activation as well as for the connectivity
analyses. Here, the right and left amygdalae were defined as
additional target ROIs in the PPI analyses of each of the
functionally defined seed regions. Resulting p values were small
volume corrected for the right or left amygdala, respectively, and
Bonferroni corrected for the number of amygdalae (i.e., 2).

patterns between the two CSL types were investigated using the
contrasts (JOY.TAU) and (TAU.JOY).
In the PPI analyses, the time-course of the BOLD response,
based on a sphere with a radius of 3 mm around the individual
peak-activation voxel within the respective seed region adjusted for
effects of interest was defined as physiological variable. Each
experimental event (i.e., laughter sequence) was defined as a
separate psychological input variable. These were then contrasted
to achieve the following contrasts between different laughter types
and tasks (CSL.TIC, TIC.CSL, JOY.TAU, TAU.JOY or
CAT.COU). The PPI was calculated as the product of the
deconvolved activation time course [38] and the vector of the
psychological variables. Through the deconvolution of the BOLD
response with the hemodynamic response function it is possible to
assess psychophysiological interactions at the neuronal level. This
is useful in experimental settings with low frequency stimulation
like event-related designs.
The physiological and psychological variables and the psychophysiological interaction term were then entered as three separate
regressors into a single SPM model. Please note that the algorithm
implemented in SPM2 orthogonalizes the regressors within the
model by default, rendering the PPI term independent of the
physiological and psychological variables. This may considerably
reduce the sensitivity of the PPI analysis in cases where these
variables are correlated, but it also effectively prevents circular
results.
Again, a second-level random effects analysis was performed for
the statistical evaluation of PPI group data. Changes in
connectivity were assessed using two approaches:
ROI-based PPI analyses. In an approach similar to von
Kriegstein and Giraud [47], each of the PPI seed regions was also
defined as target region in a ROI-based approach. This set of
ROIs which were differentially modulated by the experimental
factors (laughter type, task) was complemented by a set of
additional target ROIs which were activated under all experimental conditions during laughter perception. These ROIs were
defined by a six-fold conjunction analysis with a conjunction null
hypothesis [48] across the main effects of all experimental
conditions (JOYCAT > TAUCAT > TICCAT > JOYCOU >
TAUCOU > TICCOU) excluding regions differentially activated by
laughter type or task. As the conjunction analysis was based on the
main effects of all experimental conditions, a strict height
threshold of p,0.0001, uncorrected, was employed to allow
spatial differentiation of commonly activated regions. Together
with the extent threshold of k.15 voxels, this corresponds to
p,0.05, FWE corrected for multiple comparisons across the whole
brain at the cluster level. Changes in connectivity are reported at a
statistical threshold of p,0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons
across the respective target ROI (small volume correction, [49])
with a height threshold of p,0.001, uncorrected and cluster size of
k$5. For a strict control of the alpha error, resulting p values were
then additionally Bonferroni-corrected for the number of investigated connections between ROIs (15 seed ROIs620 target ROIs
each = 300 connections).
Whole-brain PPI analyses. A set of whole-brain PPI
analyses (CSL.TIC, TIC.CSL, JOY.TAU, TAU.JOY and
CAT.COU) were performed for each seed region. Here,
statistical significance was assessed using an uncorrected height
threshold of p,0.001 at the voxel level and a FWE correction
(p,0.05) for multiple comparisons across the whole brain at the
cluster level. Exact cluster size thresholds are given in tables S6,
S7, and S8. Additionally, p values were Bonferroni-corrected for
the number of seed regions (15) to prevent alpha error inflation.

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Results
Behavioral Data
The laughter type categorization task (CAT) yielded the
following performance rates (mean hit rates with SEM in
parentheses): JOY: 76.7% (3.5%), TAU: 80.6% (3.5%), TIC:
63.3% (4.2%). In the bout counting condition (COU) the
subsequent counting performance rates were determined for the
three laughter types: JOY: 89.4% (0.9%), TAU: 96.7% (1.0%),
TIC: 74.2% (1.5%). One-sample t-tests indicated that the
participants were able to perform well above chance level (33%)
under both task conditions and for all laughter types with all
t(17)$7.2 and all p,0.001. Taunting and joyful laughter were
categorized with comparable accuracy (t(17) = 0.9, p = 0.385)
while both complex social laughter types were categorized with
higher accuracy than tickling laughter (JOY vs. TIC: t(17) = 2.4,
p = 0.030; TAU vs. TIC: t(17) = 4.1, p = 0.001). Counting hit rates
were higher for both taunting and joyful laughter than for tickling
laughter (JOY vs. TIC: t(17) = 8.2, p,0.001; TAU vs. TIC:
t(17) = 13.4, p,0.001) and for taunting laughter higher than for
joyful laughter (t(17) = 5.6, p,0.001). The bout counting task
yielded higher hit rates than the laughter type categorization task:
86.8% (0.7%) (COU), 73.5% (2.5%) (CAT) (t(17) = 4.9, p,0.001).
Reaction times, however, did not differ between the two tasks:
812 ms (52 ms) (COU), 808 ms (73 ms) (CAT) (t(17) = 0.1,
p = 0.909).

Neuroimaging Data
Categorical analysis of cerebral responses – Definition of ROIs
for the connectivity analysis.
Perception of CSL, associated with more complex social
information, led to significantly stronger activation as compared
to TIC within several midline structures, namely the bilateral
anterior rostral medial frontal cortex (arMFC), the left middle
cingulate cortex (midCG) and the bilateral precuneus (PCUN) as
well as within the bilateral lingual/fusiform gyri (R/L LING) and
the left middle occipital gyrus (L MOG) extending into the angular
and middle temporal gyri (Table 1; Figure 2 red). Acoustically
more complex TIC elicited significantly stronger brain responses
than CSL within the posterior dorsal part of the right IFG
extending into the middle frontal gyrus (R pdIFG) as well as within
the middle part of the right superior temporal gyrus (R mSTG)
and the left supramarginal gyrus extending into the superior
temporal gyrus (L SMAR; Table 1; Fig. 1 green). A task-related
increase of activation during the CAT condition (CAT.COU)
associated with explicit processing of social information in the
laughter sounds could be observed within the bilateral orbitolateral parts of the inferior frontal gyrus (R/L olIFG), the right
posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), the right fusiform gyrus
extending into the calcarine gyrus (R FUS), the right middle
occipital gyrus extending into the right superior occipital and right
calcarine gyri (R MOG) and the bilateral posterior rostral
mediofrontal cortex (prMFC; Table 1; Figure 2 blue).
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Laughter Perception and Brain Connectivity

Figure 2. Laughter type- and task-dependent cerebral responses defining ROIs for connectivity analyses. Increased responses to
complex social laughter types (CSL.TIC, red), to tickling laughter (TIC.CSL, green) and during explicit processing of social information of laughter
(CAT.COU, blue) (p,0.001, uncorrected, cluster size k$55 (CSL vs. TIC) and k$54 (CAT vs. COU), corresponding to p,0.05, FWE corrected at cluster
level). Panels depict mean contrast estimates extracted from activated regions. Please note that displayed effects are relative contrasts and do not
correspond to general hemodynamic activations or deactivations. Asterisks mark significant interactions (p,0.05) between laughter type (CSL/TIC)
and task (CAT/COU). Activations are rendered on an MNI standard brain.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441.g002

The conjunction analysis (JOYCAT > TAUCAT > TICCAT >
JOYCOU > TAUCOU > TICCOU) identified the following six
brain regions commonly and comparably activated by all
experimental conditions: large parts of the bilateral primary
auditory and auditory association cortex (R and L STG/MTG),
bilateral areas in the orbitomedial part of the IFG bordering on
the anterior part of the insula (R and L omIFG), an area in the
dorsal part of the right IFG (R dIFG) and a region in the
supplementary motor area (SMA; see Table 2, Figure 3 B and
Figure 4 B).
No significant impact of task-specific as well as general difficulty
of task performance on cerebral responses could be observed using
parametric whole-brain analyses with stimulus-wise estimates of
task difficulty (all p.0.05, FWE corrected at the cluster level with
a height-threshold of p,0.001, uncorrected).

The comparison of brain responses following perception of
joyful and taunting laughter sounds was performed to detect
potential biases in the contrasts of CSL and TIC through one of
the two CSL types. This comparison did not yield any significant
differences (all p.0.05, FWE corrected at the cluster level with a
height-threshold of p,0.001, uncorrected).
Within several posterior brain regions, significant interactions
between laughter type and task indicated differential responses to
CSL and TIC dependant upon the attentional focus of the task: R
LING, L MOG, PCUN and midCG exhibited a significantly
stronger increase of activity for CSL as compared to TIC during
the COU condition (all F(1,17)$5.3, p#0.03; Figure 2). In R
FUS, on the other hand, a significantly stronger increase in
cerebral responses during CAT was observed for TIC as
compared to CSL (F(1,17) = 5.6, p = 0.03; Figure 2).
The amygdala ROI analysis did not yield any significant
differential activation for laughter types or task (see Table S2).
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Psycho-Physiological Interaction (PPI) analyses - ROIbased analyses. Complex social information-containing CSL

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Table 1. Differential hemodynamic activation following the perception of complex social laughter types (CSL) and tickling
laughter (TIC) and stronger hemodynamic activation following explicit evaluation of laughter type.

x

y

z

Z-score (peak
voxel)

Cluster size (voxel)

30

245

26

4.48

254*
106*

LAUGHTER TYPE EFFECTS
CSL.TIC
R lingual gyrus/R fusiform gyrus/R middle occipital gyrus/R inferior frontal gyrus/R calcarine
gyrus/R middle temporal gyrus/R inferior temporal gyrus (ROI: R LING)
L lingual gyrus/L parahippocampal gyrus/L fusiform gyrus/L hippocampus (ROI: L LING)

224

245

26

4.42

L middle occipital gyrus/L angular gyrus/L middle temporal gyrus (ROI: L MOG)

242

281

21

4.30

57*

R+L superior frontal gyrus, medial/R+L medial orbital gyrus/L superior frontal gyrus/R+L
anterior cingulum (ROI: arMFC)

9

54

6

4.25

230*

L middle cingulum/L Precuneus/L paracentral lobule (ROI: midCG)

212

239

51

4.24

87*

R postcentral gyrus/R superior parietal gyrus

21

239

63

3.97

27

L middle temporal gyrus/L inferior temporal gyrus

254

26

218

3.87

28

L+R precuneus/L cuneus/R posterior cingulum (ROI: PCUN)

26

257

33

3.60

81*

R angular gyrus/R middle occipital gyrus

48

269

33

3.57

29

R inferior frontal gyrus p. triangularis and p. opercularis/R middle frontal gyrus/R precentral
gyrus (ROI: R pdIFG)

36

15

30

4.48

141*

R superior temporal gyrus/R supramarginal gyrus (ROI: R mSTG)

63

230

18

4.41

117*

L supramarginal gyrus/L superior temporal gyrus/L Rolandic operculum (ROI: L SMAR)

260

236

33

4.06

97*

R thalamus

6

218

3

3.90

32

51

27

9

5.25

426*

TIC.CSL

TASK EFFECT
CAT.COU
R inferior frontal gyrus p. triangularis, p. opercularis and p. orbitalis/insula/superior temporal
pole/Rolandic operculum (ROI: R olIFG)
L inferior frontal gyrus p. orbitalis and p. triangularis/insula (ROI: L olIFG)

242

24

26

5.03

260*

R superior temporal gyrus/R middle temporal gyrus (ROI: R pSTS)

45

245

3

4.54

105*

R middle occipital gyrus/R superior occipital gyrus/R calcarine gyrus/R cuneus (ROI: R MOG)

27

287

18

4.44

216*

R+L medial superior frontal gyrus/R+L supplementary motor area (ROI: prMFC)

3

39

48

4.42

154*

R fusiform gyrus/R lingual gyrus/R calcarine gyrus (ROI: R FUS)

30

260

23

3.74

63*

L middle frontal gyrus/inferior frontal gyrus p. triangularis and p. opercularis

242

21

33

3.54

34

R+L cerebellum

12

281

218

3.44

34

Activations thresholded at p,0.001, uncorrected with a cluster size k.25 voxels. Coordinates refer to the MNI system.
*p,0.05, FWE corrected for multiple comparisons across the whole brain at the cluster level.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441.t001

elicited an increase in connectivity between R and L STG/MTG
and R LING and R MOG. Additional increases in connectivity
through JOY were observed between R STG/MTG and R pSTS
and R pdIFG (Figure 4, orange-brown lines, Table S4). TAU, on
the other hand, was accompanied by increases in connectivity
between bilateral STG/MTG and L SMAR and R olIFG.
Additional TAU-associated increases in connectivity were observed between R STG/MTG and arMFC and L SMAR as well
as between R mSTG and arMFC.
No significant task-related modulations of connectivity were
observed, however (Table S5).
Whole-brain analyses. This set of analyses was used to
investigate modulations of connectivity outside the network of
regions with experimentally modulated hemodynamic activation
and to double check the ROI analyses at the whole-brain level.
While in the ROI-analyses 38 (20 CSL.TIC; 18 TIC.CSL)
of 300 investigated connections were found to be differentially
modulated by CSL and TIC, the whole-brain analyses yielded a
total of 47 significant target clusters where CSL or TIC modulated

significantly enhanced connectivity between R mSTG, R STG/
MTG and L STG/MTG, on the one hand, and almost all brain
regions with stronger responses to CSL (arMFC, R and L LING, L
MOG, PCUN), on the other, with the sole exception of midCG.
Moreover, CSL enhanced connectivity between R pdIFG and L
MOG as well as arMFC and between arMFC and SMA (Figure 3
A and B, continuous red lines; Table S3). Acoustically more
complex TIC enhanced connectivity among all three regions
sensitive to this laughter type (R pdIFG, R mSTG, L SMAR) and
between each of these and R as well as L STG/MTG. Moreover,
TIC enhanced connectivity between R mSTG, R STG/MTG
and L STG/MTG and three regions with stronger responses to
explicit evaluation of social information in laughter (R and L
olIFG, prMFC; Figure 3 B and C, continuous green lines; Table
S3).
While the two exemplars of CSL employed in the present study,
i.e., JOY and TAU, did not elicit any differential hemodynamic
activation, these complex social laughter types modulated
connectivity differently in the laughter perception network: JOY

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Figure 3. Connectivity modulations within the laughter perception network through complex social laughter types and tickling
laughter. Brain regions with significantly increased responses to CSL (CSL.TIC; red areas/dots), to tickling laughter (TIC.CSL; green areas/dots) and
during explicit processing of social information of laughter (CAT.COU; blue areas/dots) as well as regions with equal activation under all
experimental conditions (mauve areas/dots) are shown in schematic form (A, C) and superimposed on a three dimensional rendering of five
transversal slices of the subjects’ mean anatomic image (B). Increased connectivity during perception of CSL (CSL.TIC; red lines; A and B), and during

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Laughter Perception and Brain Connectivity

TIC perception (TIC.CSL; green lines; B and C). Continuous lines: modulations of connectivity which survive correction for multiple comparisons
within the target ROI and additional Bonferroni-correction for the number of investigated connections (300). Broken lines: modulations which survive
correction for multiple comparisons within the target ROI but not Bonferroni-correction and for which the activated portion of the target ROI is part
of a significant target cluster of the whole-brain analysis. Z coordinates refer to the MNI-system. The size of the dots symbolizing the separate ROIs is
scaled according to the number of Bonferroni-corrected significant modulations of connectivity of the respective ROI.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441.g003

Stronger responses to complex social laughter types were found
in the precuneus/posterior cingulum (PCUN) and middle
cingulum/precuneus (midCG), areas which have repeatedly been
described as parts of the mentalizing or theory of mind network
[51,52]. These can be interpreted parallel to those responses in the
arMFC as resulting from the greater capacity of these laughter
types to trigger mentalizing processes. Interestingly, the response
differences between complex social laughter types and tickling
laughter in PCUN and midCG are significantly stronger under the
task condition when attention is diverted from the socio-relational
information of the laughter signal. This indicates that complex
social laughter types may automatically trigger such mentalizing
processes. A reason for this, beyond the greater amount of
potential socio-relational implications of joyful and taunting
laughter, could be that complex social laughter types occurs more
often and in a much greater variety of social situations where they
are processed implicitly but still with the need for swift and correct
interpretation. This contextual factor may have lead to an even
greater sensitivity of the mentalizing system to complex social
laughter types in contrast to tickling laughter, as tickling laughter
typically occurs in a narrower spectrum of situations and incurs a
lower need for mentalizing. The explicit evaluation of social
information in the laughter signal during the categorization task,
on the other hand, can be expected to trigger mentalizing
processes regardless of the perceived laughter type, thus reducing
the observed activation differences during the categorization
condition.
A plausible interpretation for the finding of stronger responses
to complex social laughter types in the visual association cortex is
that visual imagery may be elicited in connection with or as part of
the mentalizing processes triggered by complex social laughter
types. With the loci of activations within the occipito-temporal
junction and the medial temporal cortex, areas well known to
harbor face processing areas [53,54], facial imagery would appear
as the most likely form of imagery involved [55,56]. With respect
to laughter perception, Meyer and colleagues [14] reported a
similar effect with stronger responses in the fusiform gyrus when
comparing perception of laughter to non-vocal and non-biological
sounds which they also discussed in relation to facial imagery.
Two of the three complex social laughter type-sensitive areas in
the visual association cortex of the left occipito-temporal junction
(L MOG) and bilateral lingual/fusiform gyri (R and L LING)
exhibited an activation pattern parallel to the one observed in
PCUN and midCG with a non-significant interaction in L LING.
Here, the parallel activation pattern of posterior mentalizing areas
and visual association areas supports the notion of a connection
between these activations, possibly with facial imagery supporting
the decoding of social intentions.
Finally, the detection of two task-sensitive areas in the visual
association cortex of the right hemisphere suggests that visual
imagery is also involved in the explicit evaluation of social
information in laughter, formalized here as laughter type
classification.
However, the spatial distinction of areas sensitive to complex
social laughter types and those sensitive to explicit evaluation of
social information in the laughter signal clearly shows that the
surmised mentalizing processes triggered by complex social

the connectivity with one of the 15 seed regions (see Table S6). A
close comparison between the ROI- and whole-brain analyses
indicated that virtually all modulations of connectivity through
different laughter types corresponded to significant clusters in the
whole-brain analyses. Furthermore, 13 significant clusters of the
whole-brain analyses exhibited a considerable overlap with regions
of interest from the ROI approach where the respective
modulation of connectivity had been rejected as insignificant due
to Bonferroni-correction (Figure 3 A, C, broken lines; Table S3,
colored cell frames).
Finally, it was found that CSL and TIC modulated connectivity
between the PPI seed regions and six brain regions which were
spatially distinct from the study’s ROIs. CSL increased connectivity between R pdIFG, R mSTG and L SMAR and three
strongly overlapping regions in the right temporo-occipito-parietal
junction (Table S6). Furthermore, CSL enhanced connectivity
between the following regions: R pSTS and a posterior dorsal part
of the left IFG extending into middle frontal gyrus and precentral
gyrus – a left hemispheric homologue of the R pdIFG-ROI; L
LING and left caudate nucleus and thalamus. TIC, in contrast,
enhanced connectivity between R MOG and a region in the left
middle frontal gyrus extending into the superior frontal gyrus.
For the comparison between JOY and TAU, the whole-brain
analyses (see Table S7) gave no evidence of connectivity
modulations within regions spatially distinct from the ROIs. In
fact, on top of confirming every significant modulation of the ROI
analyses, seven additional significant clusters from the whole-brain
analyses exhibited a significant overlap with R mSTG, R pdIFG,
L SMAR, R MOG and R LING. These overlapping findings
indicate significant modulations of connectivity between these
regions through JOY and TAU which had been rejected in the
Bonferroni-correction of the ROI analyses (Table S7, Figure 4 A,
broken lines; Table S4, colored cell frames).
Concordant with the ROI analyses, no significant task-related
modulations of connectivity were found (Table S8).
Parallel to the negative results on the level of hemodynamic
activation, no significant modulations of connectivity between any
of the 15 seed regions and the amygdala through any of the
experimental contrasts could be observed in the additional ROIanalysis (Table S9).

Discussion
Using a whole-brain approach in the present series of analyses,
we were able to considerably extend our previously published
findings [7] on the neural correlates underlying the processing of
different types of human laughter both on the level of hemodynamic activation and connectivity.

Laughter Type-dependent and Task-dependent
Hemodynamic Responses
Compared to our previous report [7], the present whole-brain
analysis of hemodynamic activation demonstrated additional
differential responses in occipital and parietal brain regions. A
tickling laughter-sensitive area was found at the left temporoparietal junction (L SMAR) positioned more posterior than its
right hemispheric counterpart (R mSTG).
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Figure 4. Differences in connectivity within the laughter perception network during perception of joyful (JOY) and taunting (TAU)
laughter. Brain regions with significantly increased responses to CSL (CSL.TIC; red areas/dots), to TIC (TIC.CSL; green areas/dots) and during
explicit processing of social information of laughter (CAT.COU; blue areas/dots) as well as regions with equal activation under all experimental
conditions (mauve areas/dots) are shown in schematic form (A) and superimposed on a three dimensional rendering of three transversal slices of the
subjects’ mean anatomic image (B). Increased connectivity during perception of joyful laughter (JOY.TAU; orange-brown lines; A, B), and during

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Laughter Perception and Brain Connectivity

taunting laughter perception (TAU.JOY; dark brown lines; A, B). Continuous lines: modulations of connectivity which survive correction for multiple
comparisons within the target ROI and additional Bonferroni-correction for the number of investigated connections (300). Broken lines: modulations
which survive correction for multiple comparisons within the target ROI but not Bonferroni-correction; additionally, the activated portion of the
target ROI is part of a significant target cluster of the whole-brain analysis. Z coordinates refer to the MNI-system.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441.g004

monitoring (prMFC) during perception of complex social laughter
types.
The synopsis from ROI-based analyses and whole-brain
analyses suggests that apparent hemispheric differences in the
connectivity patterns of tickling-laughter sensitive auditory regions
(R mSTG and L SMAR; Figure 3 A, broken red lines) may be the
result of strict statistical alpha-error control in the ROI-approach
with concomitant beta-error inflation and not a relevant laterality
effect. The inclusion of brain regions commonly activated by
human laughter in the analysis demonstrate that the increases in
connectivity are in no way specific for tickling laughter-sensitive
areas in the auditory cortex but rather encompass large parts of
the auditory cortex generally activated during laughter perception.
The most prominent findings of the whole-brain connectivity
analyses outside the study’s ROIs were highly consistent increases
in connectivity between a region at the right temporo-occipitoparietal junction and the tickling laughter-sensitive areas in
bilateral auditory association cortex (R mSTG and L SMAR)
and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (R pdIFG). Judging from
inspection of contrast maxima and pattern of modulated
connections, this region could be a right hemisphere homologue
of L MOG. Although lacking the increased responses during
perception of complex social laughter types, it could potentially be
involved in enhanced visual imagery during processing of complex
social laughter types.
Increased connectivity for tickling laughter. Tickling
laughter perception led to enhanced connectivity among different
regions in the bilateral auditory association cortex (R mSTG, L
SMAR, R and L STG/MTG), on the one hand, and between the
auditory association cortex and the right dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (pdIFG), the bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (olIFG)
and the posterior rostral mediofrontal cortex (prMFC), on the
other. For R mSTG and R pdIFG an additional increase in
connectivity with the supplementary motor area (SMA) was
observed.

laughter types and the explicit social evaluation of laughter are not
equivalent even though they may share certain components, as
suggested by the observed interactions between laughter type and
task.
The lack of observed modulations of hemodynamic responses in
the amygdala stands in contrast to the findings of Sander and
colleagues [11–13] but is in line with the results of Meyer and
colleagues [14]. There is a methodological difference between the
present and previous studies which might explain this discrepancy:
similar to the study by Meyer and colleagues, the stimuli used in
the present study were very short compared to those used by
Sander and colleagues. Meyer and colleagues argued that
insufficient emotional induction may be the reason for the lack
of amygdala activation.

Connectivity
Increased connectivity for complex social laughter
types. In contrast to the somewhat generic increase in

connectivity between regions sensitive to complex social laughter
types and the auditory cortex, a small number of connectivity
increases outside the auditory cortex stand out distinctly. We
propose that these increases in connectivity between anterior
mediofrontal cortex (arMFC), left occipito-temporal junction (L
MOG) and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (R pSTS), on
the one hand, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (R pdIFG),
on the other, may offer a perspective on the neurofunctional
processes linking mentalizing (arMFC; [8,57–60], visual imagery
(L MOG), explicit evaluation of social information in laughter (R
pSTS) and auditory attention [23,61] and working memory
processes [24,25,62,63] of auditory information, all linked to the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Further, the increases in connectivity between left occipito-temporal junction and left ventrolateral
prefrontal cortex (L olIFG) and posterior rostral mediofrontal
cortex (prMFC) may reflect the association of visual imagery (L
MOG) with social evaluation (olIFG) and attention and action

Table 2. Regions with common hemodynamic activation for complex social laughter types (CSL) and reflex-like tickling laughter
(TIC) during explicit evaluation of laughter type and laughter bout counting which did not show any differential hemodynamic
activation between different laughter types or task conditions.

x

y

z

Z-score (peak
voxel)

Cluster size (voxel)

R superior temporal gyrus/R Rolandic operculum/R Heschl’s gyrus/R supramarginal
gyrus/R middle temporal gyrus/R postcentral gyrus/R insula

51

215

6

6.35

704

L superior temporal gyrus/L Rolandic operculum/L supramarginal gyrus/L postcentral
gyrus/L Heschl’s gyrus

254

215

12

6.04

657

R gyrus frontalis inferior p. opercularis/R middle frontal gyrus

48

15

33

4.63

16

R gyrus frontalis inferior p. triangularis/R insula

33

27

6

4.48

41

R+L supplementary motor area

3

6

63

4.41

42

L gyrus frontalis inferior p. triangularis/L insula

233

24

12

4.30

22

HAPCAT > TAUCAT > TICCAT > HAPCOU > TAUCOU > TICCOU

Activations thresholded at p,0.0001, uncorrected with a cluster size k.15 voxels, corresponding to p,0.05, FWE corrected for multiple comparisons across the whole
brain at the cluster level. Coordinates refer to the MNI system.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0063441.t002

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Laughter Perception and Brain Connectivity

types, offer a novel perspective on the neural substrates of laughter
perception.

The emergence of this second functional subnetwork centered
on the bilateral auditory association cortex in the context of
tickling laughter perception may reflect the influence of the
increased processing effort that the characteristics of tickling
laughter (i.e., higher acoustic complexity and greater information
transfer rate, [9] (see also Table S1)) impose on the laughter
perception network. The fact that virtually all involved temporal
and frontal regions are subject to enhanced connectivity with the
auditory association cortex of the R mSTG might depict how the
higher acoustic information transfer rate of tickling laughter
automatically leads to a more intensive acoustic analysis. This
analysis appears to be processed within a neural network entailing
brain regions related to the extraction of supra-segmental acoustic
information (mSTG; [20,64]), to auditory attention and working
memory (pdIFG) and to evaluation processes (olIFG). In spite of
the fact that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (olIFG) does not
count among the regions with stronger responses to tickling
laughter than to complex social laughter types, the observed
enhancement in connectivity here could be due to a higher
acoustic information load during the evaluation process associated
with tickling laughter.
Importantly, the occurrence of enhanced connectivity between
the right middle superior temporal cortex (R mSTG) and the right
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (R pdIFG) during perception of
tickling laughter corroborates previous observations of Leitman
and colleagues demonstrating that coupling between these areas
increases with decreasing stimulus saliency [35]. This increase in
connectivity might reflect sensory tuning and increased attentional
processes when stimuli are more ambiguous.
The enhancement in connectivity between the auditory
association cortex and the prMFC could similarly be interpreted
as the result of more difficult response selection given the lower
stimulus saliency of tickling laughter. Increased connectivity
between right middle superior temporal cortex (R mSTG) as well
as right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (R pdIFG) and the
supplementary motor area could be seen as corroboration of a
model discussed by Gervais and Wilson [6]. This model predicts
that the specific perception of unintentional or so-called Duchenne
laughter would involve the laughter motor program supposedly
represented in the supplementary motor area.
The most consistent feature of the observed connectivity
patterns is mainly that the connections between regions in the
auditory cortex and other brain regions are modulated by different
laughter types. This, in itself, is not surprising given the acoustic
nature of auditory laughter perception. However, this general
pattern highlights the potential significance of connectivity
modulations outside the auditory cortex for the neural processing
of different laughter types: here, the right dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (R pdIFG) stands out particularly in terms of ‘‘connectedness’’ in both functional subnetworks. Its connectivity pattern
highlights this structure as a potentially pivotal network node
storing meaningful sound patterns and linking them to visual
imagery, thus facilitating inference on social intentions.
Keeping in mind that of the different brain regions implicated in
the networks modulated by complex social laughter types, on the
one hand, and tickling laughter, on the other hand, only a few
display stronger responses to the respective laughter types, it
becomes obvious that the classical categorical analysis of BOLD
responses only portrays the ‘‘tip of the iceberg’’ of laughter
processing. Changes in connectivity have until now remained
‘‘below the waterline’’. The changes in functional coupling
between brain regions subserving different aspects of laughter
processing induced by one type of laughter, and even within partly
overlapping neural subnetworks induced by different laughter
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Differential connectivity patterns for joyful and taunting
laughter. It is a surprising finding of the present study that

differences between cerebral responses to joyful and taunting
laughter could not be observed at the level of hemodynamic
contrasts but were clearly present at the level of connectivity
modulations. The lack of differential hemodynamic responses to
two laughter types communicating distinct socio-relational information with considerable differences in valence, social dominance
and arousal in this first fMRI-experiment encompassing several
types of laughter is in itself not very surprising in light of the
literature on nonverbal vocal expressions of different emotions
using speech melody. Studies over the past two decades have
demonstrated differential activation patterns for the presence or
absence of nonverbally communicated emotional information but
consistently failed to find reliable, specific hemodynamic activation
patterns for separate emotions using categorical univariate
approaches [27,64].
Recently, however, it was demonstrated that different types of
emotional speech melody can be discriminated using a multivariate pattern analysis [65,66], showing that information aiding the
discrimination of the neural signatures of different vocal expressions of emotions can be acquired from widespread multi-voxel
patterns across the brain rather than from focal activations. With
respect to the present study, there is a considerable overlap
between those brain regions found to be informative in the
discrimination of different types of emotional speech melody by
Kotz and colleagues [66] and those regions in the present study
with specific connectivity patterns discriminating between joyful
and taunting laughter including right posterior and anterior STG/
MTG, left posterior MTG, right frontal operculum and more
dorsal and posterior parts of the right IFG and an anterior
mediofrontal region.
Keeping in mind the common denominator of the two studies,
i.e., the use of cerebral responses from spatially distinct and distal
brain areas to discriminate between different categories of vocal
expressions, both studies suggest that focal activation differences
may not be sufficient for discrimination of cerebral responses to
specific types of vocal expressions in neuroimaging studies. Rather,
they provide consistent evidence that information from spatially
distal areas needs to be combined to achieve this goal. Secondly,
the overlap in informative regions between the two studies might
implicate that a similar set of brain structures may be involved in
discriminating between types of emotional speech melody and
types of complex social laughter types. With respect to the lack of
significant modulations of connectivity of the amygdala through
different laughter types, the same potential causes have to be
discussed as for the observed lack of differences in hemodynamic
activation (see above).
Task-dependent modulations of connectivity. For taskdirected shifts of attention to or away from explicit evaluation of
social information of the laughter stimuli, no significant effect on
connectivity between the different parts of the laughter perception
network could be observed.
This lack of connectivity modulations by a shift in attentional
focus to the explicit evaluation of social information supports the
concept that, considered from the perspective of connectivity, the
perception of laughter may trigger processes of social evaluation
irrespective of task requirements. This idea also fits with the
finding that the assumed neural correlates of mentalizing processes
induced by complex social laughter types are independent of taskdependent shifts of attention [7].

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Laughter Perception and Brain Connectivity

attention, working memory, evaluation and response selection
processes.
In contrast, connectivity modulations through the higher degree
of socio-relational information of complex social laughter types
affected connections between auditory association cortices, the
right dorsolateral IFG and brain areas linked to mentalizing and
visual imagery. These may depict the interconnection of the
automatic analysis of informative acoustic features, attention
direction to certain aspects of the laughter signal and the retention
of this information in working memory during evaluation
processes supported by visual imagery as the basis for social
cognition processes. The right dorsolateral IFG in this scheme acts
as a network node potentially linking the functions of auditory and
visual associative sensory cortices with those of mentalizingassociated arMFC.
Finally, despite the lack of focal differential hemodynamic
activation patterns for joyful and taunting laughter, significantly
different connectivity patterns were found for these complex social
laughter types. This once more highlights the value of the
combined analysis of cerebral responses from spatially distinct
brain regions, here instantiated in the form of connectivity
analyses, in the research on the neural underpinnings of social
perception.

Limitations and Perspectives
In terms of directionality or causality, the interpretations of the
observed connectivity patterns in the present study have to be
treated as tentative due to the fact that PPI analyses neither enable
definite inferences on directionality of connectivity nor on the
underlying structural connections.
Although no influence of the difficulty of task performance on
hemodynamic responses could be observed, behavioral response
patterns did indicate differences in task difficulty between tickling
laughter and complex social laughter types as well as between
tasks. Thus, higher task difficulty for tickling laughter and the
laughter type categorization task could potentially influence the
functional coupling of brain regions and the interaction between
laughter type and task. In order to improve the disambiguation of
the effects of laughter type and attentional focus on functional
connectivity patterns from those of differential task difficulty,
further studies with more strictly difficulty-matched stimulus
material would be desirable. Additionally, individual stimuluswise response times could be used as a control measure.
As the stimulus-material of the present study consisted of
laughter portrayals produced by professional actors, it may be
questioned if these portrayals are equivalent to spontaneously
produced laughs. Although some authors state that vocal
portrayals of emotion may represent prototypical and more
intense expressions and overemphasize acoustical characteristics,
the majority of authors in the literature on vocal communication of
emotion assume the equivalence of portrayals to natural vocalizations [67,68]. Moreover, with regard to laughter, it was
demonstrated that it is very difficult to distinguish between
‘‘faked’’ and spontaneous laughter based on the acoustic structure
[69], which is well in line with the finding that the acoustic
properties of portrayed laughter are mostly equivalent to those of
spontaneous laughter [9]. Nevertheless, the question if the cerebral
correlates of perception of spontaneous and portrayed laughter
differ remains to be answered in further studies.
Keeping in mind that for a meaningful analysis of connectivity
modulations in a network of brain regions associated with a certain
cognitive function a comprehensive detection and definition of
these functional ROIs is necessary, recent methodological
advances in data analysis may prove very useful for future
research. Multivariate analysis of spatial activation patterns
associated with different experimental conditions has been
demonstrated to be useful for the definition of functional ROIs
for connectivity analyses [70]. As it appears to be more sensitive
than classical univariate analysis approaches, in future studies this
technique may therefore afford a more complete definition of the
set of brain regions in which the activation is modulated as a
function of task conditions or stimulus types.
Finally, for further studies on auditory laughter perception the
employment of localizer experiments for face-sensitive brain
regions could be very helpful to gain further insight into the
implications of differential hemodynamic activations through
different laughter types in the visual associative cortex.

Supporting Information
Table S1 Acoustic characterization of laughter types.

(DOC)
Table S2 ROI analysis of the bilateral amygdalae.
Differential hemodynamic activation following the perception of
complex social laughter types (CSL) and reflex-like tickling
laughter (TIC) and stronger hemodynamic activation following
explicit evaluation of social information in laughter (CAT.COU).
(DOC)
Table S3 Effects of complex social (CSL) and of tickling

(TIC) laughter on connectivity within the laughter
perception network as assessed by psycho-physiological
interaction analyses (PPI).
(DOC)
Table S4 Effects of explicit versus implicit evaluation of
social information in the laughter signal (CAT.COU;
COU.CAT) on connectivity within the laughter perception network as assessed by psycho-physiological interaction analyses (PPI).
(DOC)
Table S5 Effects of joyful and taunting laughter on

connectivity within the laughter perception network as
assessed by psycho-physiological interaction analyses
(PPI).
(DOC)
Table S6 Whole-brain analyses. Relative changes in cerebral functional connectivity (PPI) associated with complex social
laughter types (CSL) and reflex-like tickling laughter (TIC).
(DOC)

Conclusion
Complex socio-relational information and acoustic complexity
carried in different types of human laughter modulate connectivity
in two distinguishable but partially overlapping parts of the
laughter perception network irrespective of task instructions.
Connectivity changes presumably related to the higher acoustic
complexity of tickling laughter occurred between dorsolateral as
well as ventrolateral parts of the IFG, prMFC and the auditory
association cortex. They may reflect more intensive acoustic
analysis associated with similarly increased demands on auditory
PLOS ONE | www.plosone.org

Table S7 Whole-brain analyses. Relative changes in cerebral functional connectivity (PPI) associated with the perception of
different types of complex social laughter (joyful - JOY, taunting TAU).
(DOC)
Table S8 Whole-brain analyses. Relative changes in cerebral functional connectivity (PPI) associated with explicit evalua13

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Laughter Perception and Brain Connectivity

tion of laughter type (CAT) as compared to laughter bout counting
(COU).
(DOC)

Sound S2

ROI analysis of the bilateral amygdalae.
Relative changes in cerebral functional connectivity (PPI)
following the perception of complex social laughter types (CSL),
reflex-like tickling laughter (TIC), different complex social laughter
types (JOY, TAU) and explicit versus implicit evaluation of
laughter type (CAT,COU).
(DOC)

(WAV)

Exemplar of tickling laughter.

(WAV)
Sound S3

Table S9

Exemplar of taunting laughter.

Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: DW DPS KA. Performed the
experiments: DPS BK. Analyzed the data: BK TE CB. Contributed
reagents/materials/analysis tools: DPS TE WG BK. Wrote the paper: BK
DW DPS.

Sound S1 Exemplar of joyful laughter.

(WAV)

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