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["carrie mclaren" <brooklynite282 AT gmail.com>]

Apes Are Good for a Giggle
January 2, 2008
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article640440.ece

APES get the giggles from one another, researchers have found.

It is the first time animals have been shown to be prone to contagious
laughter – something previously believed to be only a human trait.

Dr Marina Davila Ross, who led the University of Portsmouth study, made the
discovery by recording the responses of 25 orangutans to their playmates'
moods.

The team found that when one displayed a gaping mouth – the ape equivalent
of laughter – its pal would often adopt the same expression less than half a
second later.

Bonding

The boffin wrote in journal Biology Letters: "What is clear now is the
building blocks of positive emotional contagion and empathy . . . evolved
prior to humankind."

Dr Davila Ross added monkeys, like people, seemed to involuntarily share one
another's laughter as a way of bonding.

She wrote: "By mimicking emotional expressions of others, individuals are
able to experience and understand the emotions of their social partners."