February 22, 2011 • 21 mins
What's the deal with tickling? Why does it make people laugh, and what's the science behind the reaction? Join Chuck and Josh and listen in as they demystify the curious practice known as tickling.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff you should know.
(00:22):
How's it going, Chuck? It is great? How are you, sir?
I'm fine. I'm I can feel spring right around the corner,
and I'm really getting a little excited. Yea, you know
the groundhog Roscoe Pete, Colecrane, Coltrane. But yeah, is that
the Georgia guy? No, that's um general generally, right? Yeah?
Where is Roscoe? The one in Pennsylvania? Now that's Paul,
(00:45):
that's right, Pucks and Tawny, Phil Puny Phil, Paul Tucket.
I think that's that's just some that's just some crazy guy.
And Paul Tucket. That's Paul Tucket, Pete. This is the
best start ever. Yeah, it is because none of this
has anything to do with what we're fixing to talk about.
Springs around the corner. That just tickles me to death.
That's not no. Have you heard Chuck of a guy
(01:09):
named and I'm sorry that I just shamed you on
our podcast. It wasn't that bad. I've heard way worse.
We've listened to tech stuff. That's right. Have you heard
of a guy named Robert Waller? Uh? It sounds familiar,
but I always say no and end up saying it
doesn't know you have not heard of this guy. I
would be very surprised if you had. Robert Waller in
(01:29):
n was a Walmart employee, uh stalker apparently at the
UM Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada store. Okay, okay. December was
a big month for a new toy that had just
debut called Tickle Me Elmo, and uh, Robert Waller was
(01:50):
about to find out the links that people would go
to to get their hands on one of these um
on December fourteenth during a midnight madness sale. Apparently Walmart
had sold out of these things, but that hadn't dissuaded
customers from basically roving the Walmart impacts looking for him.
Exactly behind stuff is knocking stuff over and they see
(02:12):
Waller accepting a box of these from another employee, and
they went after him. But really he suffered. Uh. He
was pulled under, trampled the crotch was yanked out of
his brand new jeans. Uh, he suffered a pulled hamstring.
Back up a second. They physically tore the crotch from
his jeans trying to get to this trying to get
(02:34):
their hands on a tickle me a like exactly. Yeah,
but if there's like three people pulling in the same spot,
it's pretty easy their strengthened numbers. Um. But so he
was just swallowed by this pack of three people who
who were trying to get to these tickle me almost.
He suffered injuries to his back, his jaw, and his
knee and uh, he suffered a broken rib and a concussion.
(02:59):
Not funny, No, it wasn't funny. And we can assume
that Mr Waller, ironically, in the course of giving over
these tickle me almost was in no way, shape or
form tickled. No, and that he probably didn't laugh because,
as we know, tickling is related to laughter, as anybody
who has seen it tickled me elmo. Yeah, yeah, but
(03:20):
have you stopped and wondered why we laugh when we tickle?
I know you have, because you've asked me before you
said we should do this, you know. As a side note,
I read this awesome article in The New Yorker last
week about crowd trampling and crushes and crowd waves and stuff.
We should do a podcast on that. We talked about
it in UM Riot Control Them. I yeah, yeah, yeah,
(03:41):
it's really interesting stuff. And sad I agree, and that
they wrote this one because of the Walmart incident last
year at Black Friday. Somebody died at that one. There's
no tickle me almost, so I couldn't use it, but
I saw that in my right screen TVs. I think
we're the culp for that. That is so messed up.
What is wrong with people? I don't know? And Black
Friday deals everybody and he knows they've gotten increasingly suck
(04:01):
here in this economy. Oh man, all right, so that
was a little sidetrack. Sorry about that, Josh, No, that
was the intro. Let's no, I mean, my little New
Yorker thing. Let's get back to happier. Well, we we
have a question before us. Why do people laugh when
we're tickled? This has been around for a very very
long time. People have pondered this kind of thing, right, Um,
(04:24):
Sir Francis Bacon said that, Um, you don't necessarily have
to be in a good mood in the seventeenth century,
Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was like, I'm I'm neutral on
this subject um and then uh, Darwin was huge about tickling.
He did a lot of studying of tickling. I didn't
know that until I read this. He concluded that you
(04:46):
have to be in a pretty good mood to be tickled,
that you have to be in the right frame of mind,
because both both um, tickling and laughter require a good mood.
He was wrong, and tickling and laughter are linked. We'll
get into that. But it's a question that very smart
people have explored and failed to explain, and we're not
going to explain it in this podcast Chalk. We're just
(05:08):
not this was I wrote this. By the way, I
want to apologize to you. I wrote this in like
within a couple of months of getting here, and I
was just out to prove myself and this is not
my finest article. I confused myself when I went back
and read parts of this. Can I can I read
a sentence allowed written by your hand? Yeah, A gentle
kiss can create physical arousal. So let's talk about what's
(05:29):
the what's the physiology of tickling? Is that what you
wanted to do. Yeah, let's talk about touch. You have millions,
we all have millions of nerve endings, little tiny ones
um under our skin that tell our brain when touch
is coming or you know, something or something cold. That's
how like it sends alerts like get your hand off
the stuff, that kind of thing, right, that's one of
the waves we survive exactly when they are stimulated, um
(05:52):
by something like a light touch, which is called what
it's called nismesas K N I M E S I
S And that's um G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allen
who decided that there's really just two categories of tickles.
Light tickling, right like say by a feather, very light touch,
(06:16):
and then um heavy tickling, which by the way, is
the only one that can induce laughter, which is called
called gargolesis is not very good name for it. Now.
So a light touch, let's say it sends a message
through the nervous system. It goes to a couple of
regions in the brain. Josh to help us along, called
this so mattisensory cortex is right, and that analyzes touch
(06:38):
and pressure, and then the interior singulated cortex governs pleasant feelings.
So you put touch pleasant feelings together and your brain
is going to calculate tickle and laughter maybe. So there
you go. Well, that's that's the physiology of tickling as
far as we know, and and anybody who's actually saying
(07:00):
attention to that little spiel, your ears should have perked up,
because it's fairly incomplete. We we gathered this information from
the Wonder Machine f m r I. You and I
both loved the Wonder Machine, but we both know that
humans aren't fully capable of using it to its full
potential yet, and therefore it doesn't fully prove anything. It
just suggests everything. Let's just give a brief primer in
(07:21):
the m r I. Okay, a d chuck, it's a
fancy machine lights up and basically shows you what regions
of the brain are activated when you're doing introducing certain
stimula right, and by activated we mean like that they're
suddenly getting more oxygen supply via blood than they had before.
So there's a correlation. But the m r I doesn't
(07:41):
show causation. Although it's a lot of people say, oh, well,
the m r I shows this, so that's it's not
it shows causation or correlation, not causation. Well, it also
correlated in this case why we can't self tickle because
the cerebellum says, hey, body, your fingers approaching your arm
it and you know it's coming. And supposedly, if you
(08:02):
know it's coming, you're not gonna be tickled. And people
as far back as Aristotle have wondered why, and he
supposed that, yeah, that's probably it, like you know it's coming.
The thing is it doesn't. That doesn't fully explain it,
because think about it, like when somebody comes to you
like bor it totally does what what? But that doesn't
(08:28):
mean that this is incorrect. The cerebellum is responsible for
recognizing motion, not just in yourself but in others. So
what they found is, for some reason, just based on
m R S, when you're doing it to yourself, the
cerebellum is less active. Basically, what they surmise is that
your brain is judged that something totally insignificant is about
(08:49):
to happen, so don't pay any attention to it. Let's
just keep looking out for you know, antelopes to jump
on our tigers that are coming at us. You know
what that's called what sensory attenuation. Yes, and that's when
the brain filters out. Like you said, anything unnecessary true
to I wonder, though I read this, I wonder if
someone with alien hands syndrome could tickle themselves. I would
(09:10):
think wholeheartedly because your brain doesn't know what's going on
and why because of an accident. Generally with alien hand syndrome,
your brain isn't receiving the message that your arm is moving. Right,
That's true. So I guess, yeah, I don't see why
you wouldn't be able to tickle yourself. So I guess
one thing, one idea for um that explains ticklishness, or
(09:32):
the fact that we are ticklish, Um is supported or
supports the idea or the reason why we can't tickle
ourselves because it's insignificant, right um. And one idea why
we are ar ticklish and why we tickle others is
because it's a product of socialization and a tool of
it too. Right, Well, you're talking about Darwin Hecker. Yes,
(09:55):
uh e wall Hecker with Darwin Um. Like you said,
they they hooked up together and said you have to
be in a good mood. But that's sort of been disproven.
I'm not sure how they did these studies, though, they
said that they would get people to watch like stand
up comedy and get them laughing, and they found that
they were no more likely to laugh when being tickled.
I don't know about that, because if you're in a
(10:16):
really bad mood and someone tries to tickle you, that's
not working. No, that's not necessarily true. If you get
a UM, if you're tickled by means of gargo Lisa's tickle,
like tickling or laughter is involuntary. If you're ticklish and
somebody gets you in the right spot, you can not
be in the right frame of mine and you'll still
(10:36):
like laugh and be ticklish. Yeah, no, no, no, and
then we'll think about it. If you were ticklish, Chuck,
I can suppose that. Okay, I'm sure you've seen people
being tickled before. Like if your next being tickled, your
shoulders draw up and like your hands go up and
you're you're trying to push the person off of you, right, yeah,
Or someone goes at your armpit, you you know, swat
(10:56):
them away with a wax off exactly. Um. Well, one
thing he goes that we um are basically taught that
these are very vulnerable places in our bodies and that
we need to protect them. Yeah, that makes sense to me,
Like the neck especially, Yeah, there's a lot of important
chunk in there. Yeah, and it's not even tickling with
the neck. If someone comes at your neck, you're just
(11:18):
natural responses hunch up your shoulders and like grab their
hand or something. Somebody comes at you with the judo chop.
So this goes back to when we were cave people, right,
and vulnerable spots on your body where you could bleed
out you want to protect. Now this, uh, this doesn't
necessarily go toward that explanation, but what you're talking about
(11:41):
being in caves. Yes, this is extremely ancient, and that
that's that's proven. We're suggested by the fact that all
great apes um laugh when they tickle when they're tickled, right,
little bona bows, and that's just that orangutange pretty much
all of like the smarty pants primates, right, have the
(12:04):
ability to laugh, and they laugh in different ways, but
basically what it is it's a panting sound, right, right,
So that goes to show us that you know, we
diverged from apes ten to sixteen million years ago. If
apes can laugh and we can laugh, that means we
both came. We both laughing is older than that divergence,
see what I'm saying, unless we evolved it naturally afterward,
(12:28):
but that's less likely I think then it occurring in
such an ancient way. It's that Also the idea that
is even older than that divergence, um shows up in
the fact that we're ats laugh when they're tickled. Yeah,
and that's so cute. Did you sell the video to
see the video they studied? Uh, sure, more than one
(12:49):
person has done this, but Jake pant Skep of Bowling
Green State University, that's my brother Falcons. They tickled rats
and they found out they have a little chirp that
um it's ultrasonic. Humans can't even hear it, but they,
you know, were able to record this. And not only
do they chirp when tickled, but they have a similar
(13:12):
reaction that you were talking about earlier, like a little kid.
Once they got used to the tickling, if you started
coming at the little rap with your little fingers, they
started chirping and wiggling around and throw themselves on their
back and in anticipation. But it's also that same study
and video suggests that it's it's play as well, because
when the person stopped um tickling, he just put his
(13:34):
hand in the cage and the rats would run after
it in circles. Wherever he moved his hand, they'd go
after it like they wanted to play tickle. See that's
a rat study. I can get behind tickling rats. I'll
do that all day long. Yes, So let's talk about
some of the parts of the body though, because like
the soles of the feet. Let's say, Uh, you walk
on these not exactly vulnerable, No, not vulnerable. You walk
(13:56):
on these heavy plotting every day. Uh. You would think
that a light tickle would tickle the feet, and they do.
But if you press a palm, like really hard against
the sol your foot, it would not tickle. That's all
true because of the Meisner's corpuscles. Corpuscles, corpuscles, they're very,
very sensitive, and I get the indication that they're more
(14:18):
sensitive than other areas of the body. Right, And the
soles of the feet are loaded with these things. Again,
no one has any idea why. And the fact that
the soles of your feet, which aren't very vulnerable, especially
pre shoe you know, pretty tough feet, when when there
was such a thing as shoes, right, yet the feet
(14:38):
were still understandably ticklish. Probably um. It kind of undermines
that idea that it's it's um socialization of the vulnerable
parts of your body. It doesn't make any sense, right,
but that is why your feet while you don't tickle,
While your feet aren't tickled whenever you walk, that pressure
is different. Whatever. It could be a much different world
(15:00):
everyone would have like balloons and stuff. What um. What
I couldn't figure out though, is how it's tied to laughter.
You want to know why you couldn't figure it out
because it's not proven. No one has any idea. We
just know that there it's involuntary. We know that it's
not related to mood. We know that um not a
(15:20):
light touch. That light touch, the nismesis can actually it
can be arousing or it can be annoying, like a
fly buzzing on you. That doesn't that doesn't cause laughter.
You see a horse or a cow like whacking flies
off of their hind d right, So that's why we
have that touch. But it can also be arousing, and
it's consider a type of tickle. It's the gargo Lisa's
(15:42):
tickle that's laughter inducing. But we don't understand why. Another
evolutionary biology theory is that um, it's a benign form
of human conflict, so we can get our aggressions out
without actually causing any hurt feelings and the laughter UM
shows that it's all fine and dandy and nobody's really upset.
(16:05):
But that's that's undermined by the idea that you can
really upset a person by tickling them for a prolonged
period past the point where they don't want to be
tickled any longer. They can be kind of upset. Yeah,
as a as a younger brother, you know this. Yeah,
Well my sister actually her husband who was the boyfriend
you know, years ago, used to tickle her like crazy,
(16:27):
and you know, I got out of hand, she get angry.
Tickle torture, Yeah, that's exactly what I didn't. That is
that a thing. It's the thing I looked at, tickle torture,
which I always thought was like medieval Apparently it's either
Chinese tickle torture, Indian tickle torture, some exotic land tacked
onto the front um. Apparently it may have been used
(16:50):
in medieval Europe as a form of torture. UM bring
up right. Nowadays it's used as a form of um
torture in a very sexual way. Um, at least as
far as Daily Motion is concerned. Um. But that that
kind of brings up something or brings us back to Darwin.
(17:10):
Darwin suggested that we tickle, and he probably has the
most elegantly simple explanation. We tickle because we form social bonds. Yeah,
if somebody you don't know it tickles you, that's an attack.
If somebody you do know and you feel comfortable with
tickles you, it's intimacy. Whether it's parental or sibling or
(17:31):
you know, the creation of or the strengthening of bonds
between like sexual partners. It's like you said, it's intimate. Interesting.
I wonder if the fact that it's uh, we retreat
or react because we're afraid of an attack, and if
if if it's the same with apes and rats, if
that holds true for them as well, Like it's in
(17:54):
a benign attack for them. Yeah. Well yeah, because they
were talking about the apes like playing like they do
it during play, and the rats seem to take it
as play as well. Interesting, But what that is useful
for we don't really know, or maybe we do know
we're looking too deeply into it. We should do one
on laughter period. Yes, I agreed, All right, let's do one.
(18:16):
Be a good one. Um. I guess the answer to
the question, then, Chuck, is we don't know why people
laugh when tickled. That's disappointing. It's a little disappointing. But
we'll come back to it when we be figured out.
Well maybe we will one day. Okay, So if you
want to learn more about how we don't have any
idea why we laugh when we tickle, you can read
(18:37):
this really kind of bad article I wrote um years back,
and you can read it by a writing in laugh
and tickle in the search bar at how stuff works
dot com, which will bring up that article, and which
brings up listener mail Josh. I'm gonna call this, uh
kind of a mean thing to do, but we're the
(19:00):
funny as well a munch Housen's um email. Uh. Now,
how to Control a riot? This is from Eric with
the k Hey guys, hello stuff. You should know staff
like we have a staff. It's me, you and Jerry,
that's staff. I listened to how to Control a Riot
and you spoke of mob mentality. It brought to mind
(19:21):
a game that my friends and I used to play
when I was in the Disney College program. So that
was pretty good. If we were sitting around the apartment
with nothing to do for the day, um, a group
of friends would go into a Disney park until it
was time to drink, so I guess you had pretty
much free access to the Disney Park if you win
this college program. We would get ten or more people
(19:43):
together and stand in a line. The line would be
in front of a wall or a fence, away from
any entrance or exit. It is really funny to see
more and more people get in line behind the group
of friends. The best part is when at the same
time the group just disperses at the same time, like
the original people would just leave, and all of a sudden,
there's people standing in line. We're like, why are we
(20:04):
standing by a wall? What was this here? Form? The
buffudded look on their faces would really crack us up.
I admit this is not the nicest thing in the world,
wasting part of people's day at Disney, and I still
get a chuckle though when I think of it. It's
funny to me. Now you just go with the flow.
I grouped this in with face the wrong way and
an elevators something he does. It's very off putting. I
(20:26):
just oh yeah, I do it all the time, but
I don't do it to annoy people. I do because
I'm like talking to people. Oh well yeah sure, but yeah,
I know. I don't just stand there with strangers usually,
I knee can't people who do that. You guys are
the greatest. Is Eric with a k? All right, well
thanks a lot, Eric for with the k. Look for
your kneecapping if we're ever in an elevator together, or
(20:46):
if you're standing by a wall from coming after you, buddy. Yes. Uh.
If you have any stories about Disney, we want to
hear about them, especially the gnarly uh seedy underbelly Disney,
like it's Disney jail. Yeah and I heard it. There's
just a whole underground under the entire park. That's the
(21:07):
rumored with mutants. Yeah. Uh, Well, we want to hear
your Disney stories. Please don't send us any heartwarming, heart
felt ones that we can just find those anywhere. Send
us your CD Disney stores and an email to Stuff
Podcast at how Stuff works dot com for more on
(21:27):
this and thousands of other topics. Is It how stuff
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Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff you should know.
(00:22):
How's it going, Chuck? It is great? How are you, sir?
I'm fine. I'm I can feel spring right around the corner,
and I'm really getting a little excited. Yea, you know
the groundhog Roscoe Pete, Colecrane, Coltrane. But yeah, is that
the Georgia guy? No, that's um general generally, right? Yeah?
Where is Roscoe? The one in Pennsylvania? Now that's Paul,
(00:45):
that's right, Pucks and Tawny, Phil Puny Phil, Paul Tucket.
I think that's that's just some that's just some crazy guy.
And Paul Tucket. That's Paul Tucket, Pete. This is the
best start ever. Yeah, it is because none of this
has anything to do with what we're fixing to talk about.
Springs around the corner. That just tickles me to death.
That's not no. Have you heard Chuck of a guy
(01:09):
named and I'm sorry that I just shamed you on
our podcast. It wasn't that bad. I've heard way worse.
We've listened to tech stuff. That's right. Have you heard
of a guy named Robert Waller? Uh? It sounds familiar,
but I always say no and end up saying it
doesn't know you have not heard of this guy. I
would be very surprised if you had. Robert Waller in
(01:29):
n was a Walmart employee, uh stalker apparently at the
UM Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada store. Okay, okay. December was
a big month for a new toy that had just
debut called Tickle Me Elmo, and uh, Robert Waller was
(01:50):
about to find out the links that people would go
to to get their hands on one of these um
on December fourteenth during a midnight madness sale. Apparently Walmart
had sold out of these things, but that hadn't dissuaded
customers from basically roving the Walmart impacts looking for him.
Exactly behind stuff is knocking stuff over and they see
(02:12):
Waller accepting a box of these from another employee, and
they went after him. But really he suffered. Uh. He
was pulled under, trampled the crotch was yanked out of
his brand new jeans. Uh, he suffered a pulled hamstring.
Back up a second. They physically tore the crotch from
his jeans trying to get to this trying to get
(02:34):
their hands on a tickle me a like exactly. Yeah,
but if there's like three people pulling in the same spot,
it's pretty easy their strengthened numbers. Um. But so he
was just swallowed by this pack of three people who
who were trying to get to these tickle me almost.
He suffered injuries to his back, his jaw, and his
knee and uh, he suffered a broken rib and a concussion.
(02:59):
Not funny, No, it wasn't funny. And we can assume
that Mr Waller, ironically, in the course of giving over
these tickle me almost was in no way, shape or
form tickled. No, and that he probably didn't laugh because,
as we know, tickling is related to laughter, as anybody
who has seen it tickled me elmo. Yeah, yeah, but
(03:20):
have you stopped and wondered why we laugh when we tickle?
I know you have, because you've asked me before you
said we should do this, you know. As a side note,
I read this awesome article in The New Yorker last
week about crowd trampling and crushes and crowd waves and stuff.
We should do a podcast on that. We talked about
it in UM Riot Control Them. I yeah, yeah, yeah,
(03:41):
it's really interesting stuff. And sad I agree, and that
they wrote this one because of the Walmart incident last
year at Black Friday. Somebody died at that one. There's
no tickle me almost, so I couldn't use it, but
I saw that in my right screen TVs. I think
we're the culp for that. That is so messed up.
What is wrong with people? I don't know? And Black
Friday deals everybody and he knows they've gotten increasingly suck
(04:01):
here in this economy. Oh man, all right, so that
was a little sidetrack. Sorry about that, Josh, No, that
was the intro. Let's no, I mean, my little New
Yorker thing. Let's get back to happier. Well, we we
have a question before us. Why do people laugh when
we're tickled? This has been around for a very very
long time. People have pondered this kind of thing, right, Um,
(04:24):
Sir Francis Bacon said that, Um, you don't necessarily have
to be in a good mood in the seventeenth century,
Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was like, I'm I'm neutral on
this subject um and then uh, Darwin was huge about tickling.
He did a lot of studying of tickling. I didn't
know that until I read this. He concluded that you
(04:46):
have to be in a pretty good mood to be tickled,
that you have to be in the right frame of mind,
because both both um, tickling and laughter require a good mood.
He was wrong, and tickling and laughter are linked. We'll
get into that. But it's a question that very smart
people have explored and failed to explain, and we're not
going to explain it in this podcast Chalk. We're just
(05:08):
not this was I wrote this. By the way, I
want to apologize to you. I wrote this in like
within a couple of months of getting here, and I
was just out to prove myself and this is not
my finest article. I confused myself when I went back
and read parts of this. Can I can I read
a sentence allowed written by your hand? Yeah, A gentle
kiss can create physical arousal. So let's talk about what's
(05:29):
the what's the physiology of tickling? Is that what you
wanted to do. Yeah, let's talk about touch. You have millions,
we all have millions of nerve endings, little tiny ones
um under our skin that tell our brain when touch
is coming or you know, something or something cold. That's
how like it sends alerts like get your hand off
the stuff, that kind of thing, right, that's one of
the waves we survive exactly when they are stimulated, um
(05:52):
by something like a light touch, which is called what
it's called nismesas K N I M E S I
S And that's um G. Stanley Hall and Arthur Allen
who decided that there's really just two categories of tickles.
Light tickling, right like say by a feather, very light touch,
(06:16):
and then um heavy tickling, which by the way, is
the only one that can induce laughter, which is called
called gargolesis is not very good name for it. Now.
So a light touch, let's say it sends a message
through the nervous system. It goes to a couple of
regions in the brain. Josh to help us along, called
this so mattisensory cortex is right, and that analyzes touch
(06:38):
and pressure, and then the interior singulated cortex governs pleasant feelings.
So you put touch pleasant feelings together and your brain
is going to calculate tickle and laughter maybe. So there
you go. Well, that's that's the physiology of tickling as
far as we know, and and anybody who's actually saying
(07:00):
attention to that little spiel, your ears should have perked up,
because it's fairly incomplete. We we gathered this information from
the Wonder Machine f m r I. You and I
both loved the Wonder Machine, but we both know that
humans aren't fully capable of using it to its full
potential yet, and therefore it doesn't fully prove anything. It
just suggests everything. Let's just give a brief primer in
(07:21):
the m r I. Okay, a d chuck, it's a
fancy machine lights up and basically shows you what regions
of the brain are activated when you're doing introducing certain
stimula right, and by activated we mean like that they're
suddenly getting more oxygen supply via blood than they had before.
So there's a correlation. But the m r I doesn't
(07:41):
show causation. Although it's a lot of people say, oh, well,
the m r I shows this, so that's it's not
it shows causation or correlation, not causation. Well, it also
correlated in this case why we can't self tickle because
the cerebellum says, hey, body, your fingers approaching your arm
it and you know it's coming. And supposedly, if you
(08:02):
know it's coming, you're not gonna be tickled. And people
as far back as Aristotle have wondered why, and he
supposed that, yeah, that's probably it, like you know it's coming.
The thing is it doesn't. That doesn't fully explain it,
because think about it, like when somebody comes to you
like bor it totally does what what? But that doesn't
(08:28):
mean that this is incorrect. The cerebellum is responsible for
recognizing motion, not just in yourself but in others. So
what they found is, for some reason, just based on
m R S, when you're doing it to yourself, the
cerebellum is less active. Basically, what they surmise is that
your brain is judged that something totally insignificant is about
(08:49):
to happen, so don't pay any attention to it. Let's
just keep looking out for you know, antelopes to jump
on our tigers that are coming at us. You know
what that's called what sensory attenuation. Yes, and that's when
the brain filters out. Like you said, anything unnecessary true
to I wonder, though I read this, I wonder if
someone with alien hands syndrome could tickle themselves. I would
(09:10):
think wholeheartedly because your brain doesn't know what's going on
and why because of an accident. Generally with alien hand syndrome,
your brain isn't receiving the message that your arm is moving. Right,
That's true. So I guess, yeah, I don't see why
you wouldn't be able to tickle yourself. So I guess
one thing, one idea for um that explains ticklishness, or
(09:32):
the fact that we are ticklish, Um is supported or
supports the idea or the reason why we can't tickle
ourselves because it's insignificant, right um. And one idea why
we are ar ticklish and why we tickle others is
because it's a product of socialization and a tool of
it too. Right, Well, you're talking about Darwin Hecker. Yes,
(09:55):
uh e wall Hecker with Darwin Um. Like you said,
they they hooked up together and said you have to
be in a good mood. But that's sort of been disproven.
I'm not sure how they did these studies, though, they
said that they would get people to watch like stand
up comedy and get them laughing, and they found that
they were no more likely to laugh when being tickled.
I don't know about that, because if you're in a
(10:16):
really bad mood and someone tries to tickle you, that's
not working. No, that's not necessarily true. If you get
a UM, if you're tickled by means of gargo Lisa's tickle,
like tickling or laughter is involuntary. If you're ticklish and
somebody gets you in the right spot, you can not
be in the right frame of mine and you'll still
(10:36):
like laugh and be ticklish. Yeah, no, no, no, and
then we'll think about it. If you were ticklish, Chuck,
I can suppose that. Okay, I'm sure you've seen people
being tickled before. Like if your next being tickled, your
shoulders draw up and like your hands go up and
you're you're trying to push the person off of you, right, yeah,
Or someone goes at your armpit, you you know, swat
(10:56):
them away with a wax off exactly. Um. Well, one
thing he goes that we um are basically taught that
these are very vulnerable places in our bodies and that
we need to protect them. Yeah, that makes sense to me,
Like the neck especially, Yeah, there's a lot of important
chunk in there. Yeah, and it's not even tickling with
the neck. If someone comes at your neck, you're just
(11:18):
natural responses hunch up your shoulders and like grab their
hand or something. Somebody comes at you with the judo chop.
So this goes back to when we were cave people, right,
and vulnerable spots on your body where you could bleed
out you want to protect. Now this, uh, this doesn't
necessarily go toward that explanation, but what you're talking about
(11:41):
being in caves. Yes, this is extremely ancient, and that
that's that's proven. We're suggested by the fact that all
great apes um laugh when they tickle when they're tickled, right,
little bona bows, and that's just that orangutange pretty much
all of like the smarty pants primates, right, have the
(12:04):
ability to laugh, and they laugh in different ways, but
basically what it is it's a panting sound, right, right,
So that goes to show us that you know, we
diverged from apes ten to sixteen million years ago. If
apes can laugh and we can laugh, that means we
both came. We both laughing is older than that divergence,
see what I'm saying, unless we evolved it naturally afterward,
(12:28):
but that's less likely I think then it occurring in
such an ancient way. It's that Also the idea that
is even older than that divergence, um shows up in
the fact that we're ats laugh when they're tickled. Yeah,
and that's so cute. Did you sell the video to
see the video they studied? Uh, sure, more than one
(12:49):
person has done this, but Jake pant Skep of Bowling
Green State University, that's my brother Falcons. They tickled rats
and they found out they have a little chirp that
um it's ultrasonic. Humans can't even hear it, but they,
you know, were able to record this. And not only
do they chirp when tickled, but they have a similar
(13:12):
reaction that you were talking about earlier, like a little kid.
Once they got used to the tickling, if you started
coming at the little rap with your little fingers, they
started chirping and wiggling around and throw themselves on their
back and in anticipation. But it's also that same study
and video suggests that it's it's play as well, because
when the person stopped um tickling, he just put his
(13:34):
hand in the cage and the rats would run after
it in circles. Wherever he moved his hand, they'd go
after it like they wanted to play tickle. See that's
a rat study. I can get behind tickling rats. I'll
do that all day long. Yes, So let's talk about
some of the parts of the body though, because like
the soles of the feet. Let's say, Uh, you walk
on these not exactly vulnerable, No, not vulnerable. You walk
(13:56):
on these heavy plotting every day. Uh. You would think
that a light tickle would tickle the feet, and they do.
But if you press a palm, like really hard against
the sol your foot, it would not tickle. That's all
true because of the Meisner's corpuscles. Corpuscles, corpuscles, they're very,
very sensitive, and I get the indication that they're more
(14:18):
sensitive than other areas of the body. Right, And the
soles of the feet are loaded with these things. Again,
no one has any idea why. And the fact that
the soles of your feet, which aren't very vulnerable, especially
pre shoe you know, pretty tough feet, when when there
was such a thing as shoes, right, yet the feet
(14:38):
were still understandably ticklish. Probably um. It kind of undermines
that idea that it's it's um socialization of the vulnerable
parts of your body. It doesn't make any sense, right,
but that is why your feet while you don't tickle,
While your feet aren't tickled whenever you walk, that pressure
is different. Whatever. It could be a much different world
(15:00):
everyone would have like balloons and stuff. What um. What
I couldn't figure out though, is how it's tied to laughter.
You want to know why you couldn't figure it out
because it's not proven. No one has any idea. We
just know that there it's involuntary. We know that it's
not related to mood. We know that um not a
(15:20):
light touch. That light touch, the nismesis can actually it
can be arousing or it can be annoying, like a
fly buzzing on you. That doesn't that doesn't cause laughter.
You see a horse or a cow like whacking flies
off of their hind d right, So that's why we
have that touch. But it can also be arousing, and
it's consider a type of tickle. It's the gargo Lisa's
(15:42):
tickle that's laughter inducing. But we don't understand why. Another
evolutionary biology theory is that um, it's a benign form
of human conflict, so we can get our aggressions out
without actually causing any hurt feelings and the laughter UM
shows that it's all fine and dandy and nobody's really upset.
(16:05):
But that's that's undermined by the idea that you can
really upset a person by tickling them for a prolonged
period past the point where they don't want to be
tickled any longer. They can be kind of upset. Yeah,
as a as a younger brother, you know this. Yeah,
Well my sister actually her husband who was the boyfriend
you know, years ago, used to tickle her like crazy,
(16:27):
and you know, I got out of hand, she get angry.
Tickle torture, Yeah, that's exactly what I didn't. That is
that a thing. It's the thing I looked at, tickle torture,
which I always thought was like medieval Apparently it's either
Chinese tickle torture, Indian tickle torture, some exotic land tacked
onto the front um. Apparently it may have been used
(16:50):
in medieval Europe as a form of torture. UM bring
up right. Nowadays it's used as a form of um
torture in a very sexual way. Um, at least as
far as Daily Motion is concerned. Um. But that that
kind of brings up something or brings us back to Darwin.
(17:10):
Darwin suggested that we tickle, and he probably has the
most elegantly simple explanation. We tickle because we form social bonds. Yeah,
if somebody you don't know it tickles you, that's an attack.
If somebody you do know and you feel comfortable with
tickles you, it's intimacy. Whether it's parental or sibling or
(17:31):
you know, the creation of or the strengthening of bonds
between like sexual partners. It's like you said, it's intimate. Interesting.
I wonder if the fact that it's uh, we retreat
or react because we're afraid of an attack, and if
if if it's the same with apes and rats, if
that holds true for them as well, Like it's in
(17:54):
a benign attack for them. Yeah. Well yeah, because they
were talking about the apes like playing like they do
it during play, and the rats seem to take it
as play as well. Interesting, But what that is useful
for we don't really know, or maybe we do know
we're looking too deeply into it. We should do one
on laughter period. Yes, I agreed, All right, let's do one.
(18:16):
Be a good one. Um. I guess the answer to
the question, then, Chuck, is we don't know why people
laugh when tickled. That's disappointing. It's a little disappointing. But
we'll come back to it when we be figured out.
Well maybe we will one day. Okay, So if you
want to learn more about how we don't have any
idea why we laugh when we tickle, you can read
(18:37):
this really kind of bad article I wrote um years back,
and you can read it by a writing in laugh
and tickle in the search bar at how stuff works
dot com, which will bring up that article, and which
brings up listener mail Josh. I'm gonna call this, uh
kind of a mean thing to do, but we're the
(19:00):
funny as well a munch Housen's um email. Uh. Now,
how to Control a riot? This is from Eric with
the k Hey guys, hello stuff. You should know staff
like we have a staff. It's me, you and Jerry,
that's staff. I listened to how to Control a Riot
and you spoke of mob mentality. It brought to mind
(19:21):
a game that my friends and I used to play
when I was in the Disney College program. So that
was pretty good. If we were sitting around the apartment
with nothing to do for the day, um, a group
of friends would go into a Disney park until it
was time to drink, so I guess you had pretty
much free access to the Disney Park if you win
this college program. We would get ten or more people
(19:43):
together and stand in a line. The line would be
in front of a wall or a fence, away from
any entrance or exit. It is really funny to see
more and more people get in line behind the group
of friends. The best part is when at the same
time the group just disperses at the same time, like
the original people would just leave, and all of a sudden,
there's people standing in line. We're like, why are we
(20:04):
standing by a wall? What was this here? Form? The
buffudded look on their faces would really crack us up.
I admit this is not the nicest thing in the world,
wasting part of people's day at Disney, and I still
get a chuckle though when I think of it. It's
funny to me. Now you just go with the flow.
I grouped this in with face the wrong way and
an elevators something he does. It's very off putting. I
(20:26):
just oh yeah, I do it all the time, but
I don't do it to annoy people. I do because
I'm like talking to people. Oh well yeah sure, but yeah,
I know. I don't just stand there with strangers usually,
I knee can't people who do that. You guys are
the greatest. Is Eric with a k? All right, well
thanks a lot, Eric for with the k. Look for
your kneecapping if we're ever in an elevator together, or
(20:46):
if you're standing by a wall from coming after you, buddy. Yes. Uh.
If you have any stories about Disney, we want to
hear about them, especially the gnarly uh seedy underbelly Disney,
like it's Disney jail. Yeah and I heard it. There's
just a whole underground under the entire park. That's the
(21:07):
rumored with mutants. Yeah. Uh, Well, we want to hear
your Disney stories. Please don't send us any heartwarming, heart
felt ones that we can just find those anywhere. Send
us your CD Disney stores and an email to Stuff
Podcast at how Stuff works dot com for more on
(21:27):
this and thousands of other topics. Is It how stuff
works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone app has a arrive.
Download it today on iTunes. Brought to you by the
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