Editing Joke (section)

=== Punchline ===
The [[punchline]] is intended to make the audience laugh. A linguistic interpretation of this punchline/response is elucidated by [[Victor Raskin]] in his [[Theories of humor#Script-based semantic theory of humor|Script-based Semantic Theory of Humour]]. Humour is evoked when a trigger contained in the punchline causes the audience to abruptly shift its understanding of the story from the primary (or more obvious) interpretation to a secondary, opposing interpretation. "The punchline is the pivot on which the joke text turns as it signals the shift between the [semantic] scripts necessary to interpret [re-interpret] the joke text."{{sfn|Carrell|2008|p=308}} To produce the humour in the verbal joke, the two interpretations (i.e. scripts) need to both be compatible with the joke text and opposite or incompatible with each other.{{sfn|Raskin|1985|p=99}} Thomas R. Shultz, a psychologist, independently expands Raskin's linguistic theory to include "two stages of incongruity: perception and resolution." He explains that "… incongruity alone is insufficient to account for the structure of humour. […] Within this framework, humour appreciation is conceptualized as a biphasic sequence involving first the discovery of incongruity followed by a resolution of the incongruity."{{sfnm |1a1=Shultz |1y=1976 |1pp=12–13 |2a1=Carrell |2y=2008 |2p=312}} In the case of a joke, that resolution generates laughter.

This is the point at which the field of [[neurolinguistics]] offers some insight into the cognitive processing involved in this abrupt laughter at the punchline. Studies by the cognitive science researchers [[Seana Coulson|Coulson]] and [[Marta Kutas|Kutas]] directly address the theory of script switching articulated by Raskin in their work.{{sfn|Coulson|Kutas|1998}} The article "Getting it: Human event-related brain response to jokes in good and poor comprehenders" measures brain activity in response to reading jokes.{{sfn|Coulson|Kutas|2001|pp=71–74}} Additional studies by others in the field support more generally the theory of two-stage processing of humour, as evidenced in the longer processing time they require.{{sfn|Attardo|2008|pp=125–126}} In the related field of [[neuroscience]], it has been shown that the expression of laughter is caused by two partially independent neuronal pathways: an "involuntary" or "emotionally driven" system and a "voluntary" system.{{sfn|Wild|Rodden|Grodd|Ruch|2003}} This study adds credence to the common experience when exposed to an [[off-color humor|off-colour]] joke; a laugh is followed in the next breath by a disclaimer: "Oh, that's bad…" Here the multiple steps in cognition are clearly evident in the stepped response, the perception being processed just a breath faster than the resolution of the moral/ethical content in the joke.