Robert Provine, professor of psychology, appeared on the Irish radio station newsTalk’s Moncrieff program July 5th to discuss laughing’s purpose and its origins in human evolution.
“Laughter is literally the sound of play,” said Provine. “In fact, the human ‘ha-ha’ evolved from the labored breathing of our rough-and-tumble primate ancestors, whereby ‘pant-pant’ became ‘ha-ha.'”
You can listen to the discussion here, in segment 3 from the July 5th broadcast, beginning at 51:20 and continuing in segment 4.
