Abstract:

The pilot study aims at detailed comparison of children's reactions to cartoon jokes, depending on the general level of intelligence. The study directly follows the analysis of comparison of the subjectively perceived humour of the basic types of jokes, depending on the intellectual level, in the form of face-to-face administration. This study is eye-tracker based and it describes the results obtained from a pilot group of 19 pupils from the 1st and 2nd class. The results showed that pupils diagnosed with extraordinary intellectual giftedness needed a significantly shorter period of time and a smaller number of eye saccades both to understand the situation and qualify the degree of its humour. Furthermore, it was found out that exceptionally gifted pupils, as opposed to others, drew their attention to different details in certain situations. The increased focus on detail seems to be the reason, as well as an advanced need for realism and perfectionism, which was also documented at extraordinarily gifted pupils in other studies. Although children of different intellectual levels perceive the situation as equally humorous, research implied that the situation can be understood in a diametrically different way, whereas mentally retarded pupils generally understand the joke in its simpler level, exceptionally gifted pupils see it at a higher level or even in several levels simultaneously. The results of our study can help teachers understand the differences in humour perceptions and, indirectly, encourage teachers to make thorough use of humour.

Keywords:

Perception, humor, cartoons, gifted, pupils.