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| Evolution has enabled humans to use laughter to mock and ridicule others while apes simply laugh to enjoy themselves, a scientist revealed today. Dr Marina Davila Ross, of the University of Portsmouth, has previously studied how humans learned to laugh from their great ape ancestors. In her latest research she found that primate species have since developed different functions for laughter. While Asian apes laugh for laughter's sake, African apes laugh to influence others and humans can use laughter to sneer at others. Dr Ross said: 'Humans and the African ape developed laughter further than the Asian great ape to have an effect on others. 'But something happened in the last five million years which means humans use laughter for a much wider range of situations than our primate ancestors. 'Laughter occurs in close to every imaginable form of human social interaction, including to mock others.' Dr Davila Ross, a research fellow at the Department of Psychology, said that although laughter was present in all descendants of the great apes, the sound of laughter changed throughout evolution. She said that her research, published in Communicative and Integrative Biology, indicated that these changes in sound occurred together with changes in laughing behaviour of the species. She explained: 'Our observations showed strong differences in the use of laughter between the Asian great apes (orangutans) and the African great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos). 'Asian great apes tend to squeak more than laugh, while African apes and humans laugh clearly more often. 'Based on our findings, we can conclude that 10 to 16 million years ago laughter was a sound with limited use. It probably had little effect on the way others behave. 'Our findings suggest two important periods of selection-driven changes in laughter of great apes and humans.' Dr Davila Ross and her colleagues Michael Owren, of Georgia State University, and Elke Zimmermann, of University of Veterinary Medicine in Hannover, also showed that sounds other than laughter can evolve in the context of tickling and play. Other mammals, including flying foxes, make sounds when they are tickled but they are not necessarily laughing. |
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