Now You See It, Now You Don't: The Magic of Humor

BRIEF PROPOSAL NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T: THE MAGIC OF HUMOR WILLIAME. FRYJR.* One ofthe rewarding experiences ofscience is that occasion when information from two separate and unrelated sources comes together to produce an amplification of each other. Such an event occurred as a result of the reporting by Morris Eagle, David L. Wolitzky, and George S. Klein [i] of their studies of the effects of a concealed visual stimulus figure on imagery. Theseexperimenters reported the results ofa skillful attack on the question ofwhether concealed form in visual stimuli (a picture puzzle) has "no independent status as a precept "—the viewpoint of classic Gestalt theory—or has a stimulus potency despite its "being experientially weak or never consciously perceived," having "an ensemble of responses and associations activated by die entire configuration." Their conclusion is conservatively stated: "The background can be independently registered, and it is capable of influencing, under certain conditions, the subject's response to die total configuration." The intrinsic significance of these findings is obvious. There are several additional, external values which result in the sort of minor miracle of science mentioned above. One such relates to the Poetzl phenomenon. In the experiments originally reported by O. Poetzl in 1917 [2, 3], it was presented that many elements ofa visual stimulus (picture) which were not consciously accessible to recall shortly following exposure to the stimulus would appear in dreams during subsequent sleep, and that the immediate recall impressions when coupled with the subsequent dream impressions yielded a reconstruction of the original stimulus picture. A revival ofinterest in the Poetzl experiments was set offduring the early 1950s by psychoanalyst Charles Fisher [4-6] who reported confirmation of the Poetzl findings. One of the authors I am discussing, George S. Klein, took an active part in this revival and published a series ofarticles on this and related subjects [7, 8]. More recent studies, for example , Benjamin Lapkin [9] and Sheldon E. Waxenberg, Robert Dickes, and Harry Gottesfeld [10], refuted the original hypothesis and the confirmation. The preconscious perception studies carried out at die Menninger Foundation during the 1950s and early 1960s by Drs. Lester Luborsky, Howard Shevrin, and Lawrence Stross fn-14] extended the investigation ofthe Poetzl phenomenon and brought forth several related findings. These investigators reported findings which support the sugges- * Address: 888 Oak Grove Avenue, Menlo Park, California 94025. I73 tion that subliminal impressions are "more likely to register in dreams when the subject has not become fully aware ofthe stimulus ... a picture exposed at the speed of1/50 of a second." They also reported that a subject in a hypnotic state "may be more effective in retrieving the memories ofhis fleeting impressions than in a waking state." They concluded that incidental and subliminal impressions both play a special role as day residues in dreams, and that this influence is not confined to dreams but affects all thinking. Although the Eagle et al. [?] paper does not discuss directly die Poetzl material either pro or con, it shows evidence ofbenefit from the Poetzl controversy in improved experimental design, broader perspective, use ofimagery rather dian dreams for retrieval, use of concealed figure stimulus, and others. It is apparent then that a constructive and evolutionary relationship exists between the Poetzl and Eagle et al. studies. I am more concerned in this proposal with the salutory relationship between my own studies of humor and the Eagle et al. work. In my book report ofthese studies, Sweet Madness: A Study ofHumor [15], I present a schema for die "structure" ofhumor. This schema depicts humor as a sequence of behavior delimited from odier behavior by a frame of logical paradox (as discussed by Whitehead and Russell [16], Godei [17], Wittgenstein [18], Bateson [19, 20]). This frame is established by a humor cue which is, on one level of abstraction, a definitive communication, and which is, on another level, a comment on itselfand, specifically, a negation ofitself. ("Smile when you say that.") Within this paradox frame, die moment ofperceived humor—emotion—occurs at that moment when another logical paradox involving die content of die humor is precipitated —the "punch line." This content paradox depends on the presentation in the punch line ofwhatT...