From “Aha!” to “Haha!”: Humour processing and insight problem-solving in autism

Abstract

Humour processing requires the integration of disparate information and shares cognitive mechanisms with insight problem-solving, in which previously unrecognized connections are suddenly discovered through an “Aha!” experience. Autistic individuals may differ from neurotypical individuals in integrative information processing, potentially influencing humour comprehension and appreciation. Nineteen autistic adults without intellectual disability and 48 neurotypical adults completed an online task involving 90 ambiguous visual stimuli paired with Humorous Interpretative (HI), Non-Humorous Interpretative (NHI), or Physical (PHY) descriptions. HI and NHI required reinterpretation of the stimuli to construct coherent humorous and non-humorous insights, respectively, whereas PHY provided literal descriptions. Participants rated each stimulus for amusement and meaningfulness. HI stimuli were rated as more amusing than NHI and PHY stimuli, with no group differences in amusement. Autistic participants reported lower meaningfulness across conditions than neurotypical participants, indicating that this difference was not specific to humorous processing but also extended to non-humorous insight. Meaningfulness was positively associated with amusement only in the HI condition, and trial-level analyses showed that greater meaningfulness predicted greater amusement for humorous stimuli similarly across groups. Overall, humour appreciation appears preserved in autism despite differences in perceived meaningfulness, suggesting that differences may primarily concern the meaning-making and information-integration processes underlying humour comprehension rather than the capacity to experience amusement.