By Chris Cosci

There are many signs of growing old that we have come to expect. Your hearing will start to fade. Your hair will turn gray. And your skin will begin to wrinkle. Now, according to a new study performed in Canada, there is a new concern about growing older. You may find it harder to “get” jokes.

Psychologist Prathiba Shammi and supervisor Donald Stuss recently conducted research to determine how well older people respond to jokes and funny cartoons. The results show that older people have a harder time recognizing punch lines than the younger crowd. Of course, there’s always the possibility that the older people just didn’t hear the rim shot at the end of the joke.

The study was divided into three tests, each taken by two groups – one with an average age of 28 and one with an average age of 73. The first test asked participants to read a list of statements and choose the humorous ones. The results of this first test showed very similar scores between the younger group and the older group. But it was the next two tests that showed a decline in humor recognition for older people.

In the second test, participants were given the opening lines of 16 jokes, and then they had to choose the funny punch lines. Here is a sample joke from this portion of a test, with the correct punch line included:

A neighbor approached Mr. Smith at noon Sunday and inquired, “Say Smith, are you using your lawn mower this afternoon?” “Yes, I am,” Smith replied warily. Then the neighbor answered, “Fine, you won’t be wanting your golf clubs, I’ll just borrow them.”

Based on this example, the only conclusion I came up with is that I must be getting older.

Incorrect endings to this joke included the neighbor saying the logical “Oh well, can I borrow it when you’re done, then?” and the non sequitur “The birds are always eating my grass seed.” Another alternative non sequitur ending read as follows: “Yow!” said the neighbor, as the rake he walked on slapped his face. I don’t know about you, but my vote goes to the guy getting hit in the face with a rake.

The final test required participants to look at ten series of cartoon drawings. Each series had four drawings, and participants had to choose the one with a funny detail. Results showed that the older group made more mistakes than the younger group in finding the humor in these last two tests.

Now, some of you may be saying, “but isn’t humor subjective?” To which I say, “go step on a rake.” Of course, the object of this study was not to decide how funny these jokes are, but to see how well older people recognized humor. After all, some people may not find the golf clubs joke funny. This doesn’t mean they don’t have a sense of humor. It means they have good taste.

And besides, this was a scientific study, which means that the researchers probably used a large sampling people, right? Absolutely - if by “large” you mean “more than ten people.” The study took results from a whopping 37 people. That’s, like, five more people than were at my parents’ house for Christmas last year.

So, does this study mean that older people have no sense of humor? Absolutely not. In fact, Shammi was encouraged to learn that, when they did correctly identify the humor, older people did react appropriately to the jokes. In other words, milk came squirting out of their nose just as hard as anyone else’s.

While the study will be helpful in the field of neuropsychology, we’ll just have to continue making our own judgments in the real world. After all, I know plenty of people my age who couldn’t recognize humor if it wore a name tag. And likewise, I know plenty of older people who have a better sense of humor than people half their age. But, in case you do start to lose your touch as you grow older, start looking for the funny stuff now. For starters, did you hear the one about the neighbor who was mowing his lawn?