Robert Provine

Who they are

The work of Robert Provine reaches this site through the papers listed below. On this site the name is tied to The Play Signal, Common Knowledge, Gossip.

Key papers

Provine, R. R. (1993). Laughter punctuates speech: Linguistic, social and gender contexts of laughter. Ethology, 95(4), 291-298. What it reports: Observed 1,200 episodes of laughter among young adults in public places. More than 99 per cent of laughs fell at pauses at the ends of phrases or sentences, and speakers laughed more than their listeners.

Provine, R. R. (2005). Yawning. American Scientist, 93(6), 532-539. What it reports: Reviews work on yawning, including a video study in which watching a series of yawns set off yawns in about half of viewers, far more than watching smiles, and finds that reading about yawning can have the same effect. Contagious yawning appears years after spontaneous yawning.

Provine, R. R., Krosnowski, K. A., & Brocato, N. W. (2009). Tearing: Breakthrough in human emotional signaling. Evolutionary Psychology, 7(1). What it reports: Faces with tears digitally removed were rated as less sad than the same faces with tears, and some were read as awe, concern or puzzlement. The authors suggest tears resolve ambiguity about what a face shows.

Key ideas

The Play Signal: A cue that tells a partner that rough contact is not an attack.

Common Knowledge: the recursive state in which each party knows that the others know, which licenses acting together

Gossip: Everyday talk about who did what, the low-cost end of norm enforcement.

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