You can't tickle yourself into laughter


How come?

It seems that the relation between tickling and laughter is *conditioned* in a particular way, and is not a necessary causal relation.

It seems that when tickled, people tend to laugh only if they are tickled by someone they like, or if they like the situation.

Yet, strikingly, if you tickle yourself, you do not laugh. You can clearly feel the sensation of tickling, but it seems neutral.

So how come we can't make ourselves laugh by tickling ourselves, while if someone else tickles us, we tend to laugh?

You can't tickle yourself into laughter

Actually you can if youv been smoking enough :m: , i would know ;)
On a serious note, i dont really know, perhaps its because when somone else is doing the tickeling we have no control over it, which in turn takes us by suprise, and our immediate reaction is to laugh, as it tickles. Maybe if we were to take away the 'shock' value i.e. tickling ourselves then our reaction is not one of laughter.
A very very good thread question, i however do not hold the answer :D

I always thought it had something to do with the surprise factor as well.
Then again, you can't tickle yourself with a stick, either, and that should be pretty much the same effect as someone else's hand doing the tickling.
It's got to be emotional.
hmmmm
I agree with john smith. A damned good question.

It seems that tickling-and-laughing is entirely in the mind.

Get someone laughing and in the ticklish mood, and just pretending you are going to tickle will often have them in fits.

I've never really thought about this question. I go crazy whenever I get tickled by someone, but it's pretty dull when I try to tickle myself.

It's thought because the cerebellum filters out self movements. As an erotic aside, some women find masturbation to be a similar experience to this self-tickling. I.e. they need an other to stimulate them.

This is a common thing and is quite useful for the organism. If self-movements weren't filtered out, you'd be overwhelmed with stimulations from the slightest movements. All day long you'd be receiving stimulation until your system would be overloaded.

Note. You do receive the stimulation, it's not entirely removed, it's merely not amplified in the way that the touching by an other is.

There have been experiments where people have tried tickling themselves with tools, but even these tools are intererpreted in the mind as self and the tickling is cancelled out, but if the tool is sophisticated enough to have a form of delay between the will to move from you and the actual move by the tool... then tickling ensues.

It seems that tickling-and-laughing is entirely in the mind.

Well. Of course they are. Where else would they be? In your feet?


Consider this scenario. You've just been raped. Your rapist tickles you.

Do you laugh?

It's thought because the cerebellum filters out self movements. As an erotic aside, some women find masturbation to be a similar experience to this self-tickling. I.e. they need an other to stimulate them.

This is a common thing and is quite useful for the organism. If self-movements weren't filtered out, you'd be overwhelmed with stimulations from the slightest movements. All day long you'd be receiving stimulation until your system would be overloaded.

Note. You do receive the stimulation, it's not entirely removed, it's merely not amplified in the way that the touching by an other is.

Alright. But this amplification is not universal or automatic -- sometimes being tickled results in laughter, and sometimes it doesn't.


Well. Of course they are. Where else would they be? In your feet?

No, the point is that the relation between tickling and laughter is conditioned, not automatic.


Consider this scenario. You've just been raped. Your rapist tickles you.

Do you laugh?

I said earlier:

It seems that when tickled, people tend to laugh only if they are tickled by someone they like, or if they like the situation.

Alright. But this amplification is not universal or automatic -- sometimes being tickled results in laughter, and sometimes it doesn't.

Of course.
Laughter is a social event. The stimulation that leads to laughter which we call tickling is also a social event. It's a social bonding behavior. It is important to us in this context. In the event of social bonding taking place (which is interpreted by the brain as taking place) then the stimulus is amplified within the brain and routed to the emotional centers in the basal ganglia (to give us the good feelings) and to the anterior cingulate cortex (from which primitive call type behavior originates).

If the situation is inappropriate to social bonding (as interpreted by the brain) then this routing doesn't take place. In fact, the effect is usually just the opposite. Inappropriate tickling is a chilling rather than a neutral experience.

Now. The topic is actually self-tickling and not inappropriate tickling and self-tickling is processed out by another method. As I've said, the cerebellum routinely diminishes sensations brought about by self-movement. This is a necessary function to prevent sensory overload. Only the important sensations make it through the network to receive the highest levels of attention by your conscious being.


By the way, speaking of primitive call-type behavior. This always reminds me of one of Jane Goodal's chimps. This chimp was low on the heirarchy and therefore was one of the last to receive food whenever any was found. Now, chimps spread out to look for food and are expected to call back to the troop when any is found. Well, this chimp stumbled across one of Goodal's banana stashes (very unprofessional of her, by the way). So. It starts to make the found food call. But, and here's the kicker, it doesn't want to. It wants to eat the food itself because it knows once the troop shows up it's going to get kicked to the curb and have to wait his turn. However, he's unable to stop the food call as its hardwired into his neural responses. He's not in conscious control of this call. So, since he can't stop, he tries to muffle the sound with his hands instead.

I've always been fascinated by this split personality type behavior between primitive instincts and conscious control. This split is inherent in human behavior and is crucial to understanding our awareness of the world around us. (I'm sure I've told you this story before, Water, but perhaps some others haven't heard it.)

Now. What does this have to do with laughter? Primitive calls originate not from the areas of the brain which process human language (Broca's area, Wernicke's area, etc...) but from the anterior cingulate gyruss (buried inside the brain. Just above the corpus callosum. The cingulate gyruss was one of the first areas of cortex to develop in mammals.) Calls emanating from the cingulate gyruss are not within our fully conscious control. Laughter fits this bill. All behaviors that are 'contagious' are, in root, instinctual. The group complies with the instinctual patterns embedded within. The group laughs and so must you.

Curse words and certain other words that are extremely common and patterned also originate from this area. This is why stroke victims are still able to curse...

Alright. Have I rambled far enough away from topic yet?

No, the point is that the relation between tickling and laughter is conditioned, not automatic.

Yes. Conditioned. You could call it that. The brain has to learn what is an appropriate environment to translate the tickling into the positive social response called laughter.

By the way, did you know that there's a form of narcolepsy that causes a person to go unconscious if they laugh? True. Very weird stuff. Always reminds me of those fainting goats, except the goats remain fully conscious and only experience muscular spasms...