Neural mechanisms underlying the processing of Chinese semantic and homophonic pun jokes

Pun-based jokes are a form of verbal humor that relies on word polysemy, phonetic similarity, or sound-form associations, and their comprehension involves multiple cognitive processes such as linguistic ambiguity processing, contextual integration, meaning reconstruction, and humorous experience; however, their temporal course and neural mechanisms remain to be further elucidated. This study employed event-related potential (ERP) technology, using Chinese semantic pun jokes and homophonic pun jokes as experimental materials, to investigate the dynamic processing course and neural mechanisms of Chinese native speakers when comprehending different types of pun jokes. The results showed that, compared with the non-joke condition, pun jokes sequentially elicited larger P200, ...