（2025·山东·二模）How do you quantify something as complex and personal as humour? University of Alberta researchers have developed a mathematical method of doing just that and it might not be as personal as we think.
The study originated from earlier research where test subjects with aphasia (失语症) were asked to review letter strings and determine whether they were real words or not. Westbury, lead author of the new study, began to notice a trend: participants would laugh when they heard some made-up non-words, like snunkoople. Then how can a made-up word be funny?
Westbury assumed the answer lay in the word’s entropy, a mathematical measure of how ordered or predictable it is. Non-words like finglam, with uncommon letter combinations, are low in entropy.
Westbury set out to determine whether it was possible to predict what words people would find funny, using entropy as a yardstick. “Once you start thinking about humour in terms of probability, then you start to understand how we find so many different things funny,” he said.
In his study, test subjects were asked to compare two non-words and choose. The option they considered to be more humourous, and then they were shown a single non-word and rated how humourous they found it in the range of 1 to 100.
“The results show that the bigger the difference in the entropy between the two words, the more likely the subjects were to choose the way we expected them to,” says Westbury, noting that the most accurate subject chose correctly up to 92 percent of the time.
This nearly universal response says a lot about the nature of humour and its role in human evolution. “We think humour is personal. Actually, humour is an evolutionary message sending device. So if you laugh, you let someone-else know something is not dangerous,” says Westbury. “The study may not change the game for stand-up comedians, but the findings may be useful in the business field. For example, people might dislike buying a funny-named medication for a serious illness, or it could go the other way around.”
58．What does the new study focus on?
A．The classification of humour levels. B．The measurement of humour perception.
C．The means of creating letter strings. D．The potential of humour in commercials
59．What kind of word seems more humourous according to the study?
A．Non-words with high entropy. B．Non-words with abnormal origins.
C．Non-words with rare letter groupings. D．Non-words with handwritten letters.
60．Which of the following best describes test subjects task in Westbury’s study?
A．Contrast, select and grade. B．Inquire, pick and present.
C．Compare, design and report. D．Collect, document and evaluate.
61．What does the author want to tell us in the last paragraph?
A．Humour differs among individuals. B．Humour has its roots in word play.
C．Humour is a product of human. evolution. D．Humour is absolutely personal and subjective.
【答案】58．B 59．C 60．A 61．C
【知识点】科普知识 、说明文、幽默
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