Humour study by Madelijn Strick chosen as public research project during Weekend of Science

Each year during the national Weekend of Science , there is one study in which everyone in the Netherlands is given the opportunity to contribute to science. This year's public research project is the humour study ' Don't make me laugh! ' led by Madelijn Strick , a psychologist at Utrecht University. She has teamed up with the television programme Het Klokhuis to examine the role of humour in daily communication. For this study, Strick has participants watch a number of segments from the children's educational TV show Het Klokhuis. These scenes can be funny, serious, or both. After watching the segments, participants answer a series of questions. Strick explains: 'We try to find out all kinds of things with these questions, such as: how funny do viewers of different ages think the Klokhuis sketches are? Which jokes do they enjoy most, and does humour help them to better understand the programme's content?' - Het Klokhuis is a programme that successfully uses humour to convey a message.