My son doesn't laugh when others laugh - Theory of Mind

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My husband was showing everyone in the family videos from the internet as he does often. On one video, this man started laughing at a bus stop and soon everyone at the bus stop was laughing or grinning. I was laughing so hard tears were falling, my husband was laughing and my daughter was laughing. My son was just looking around from the video to us with a quizzical expression, then said "What's so funny. I don't get it. Why's everybody laughing." The reality is I couldn't explain why I was laughing or why it was so funny. Contagious laughter.

So, I got to thinking later about who was more odd - him for not laughing when everyone was laughing or us for laughing for no reason just because others were laughing?

Do you think this is an AS theory of mind thing?

I wonder if it is the same for contagious yawning?

It sounds like a Theory of Mind thing plus needing a reason to do something instead of just following what others do.

Re: yawning. I found this on wikipedia:

A 2007 study found that young children with autism spectrum disorders do not increase their yawning frequency after seeing videos of other people yawning, in contrast to typically developing children. In fact, the autistic children actually yawned less during the videos of yawning than during the control videos. This supports the claim that contagious yawning is related to empathic capacity.[28]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yawn

I doubt a video like that would have made me laugh either.

But I have experienced contagious laughter IRL several times.

omgosh, or maybe Occam's razor, he just didn't find it funny.

Be careful about cherry picking* situations for evidence.
If you want...
I suppose...
It's probably no big deal either way.



----------------
*selective attention
*confirmation bias

The point of the OP is that NTs will "catch" laughter from other people even if they don't find the thing being laughed at funny.

I seem to be less prone to contagious laughter than most.

Humor is difficult with those on the spectrum. Especially humor that is non-verbal, or not clearly obvious. An aspie I have known for years hated stand up comedians because they told such an exaggerated story that it wasn't believable to him. He also had a hard time imagining the scenario. On the other hand, he found sitcoms to be hilarious...the story was played out for him and made much more sense.

Another point to make is that even though it may be sad that a positive emotion like laughter is not contagious, it is important to note that negative emotions such as anger and hate are also not "contagious" and he will be less likely than most to participate in an angry mob of people (sporting events, large gatherings) because of his ability to separate emotions and logic.

The examples given are synonymous with an automatic reaction (via the autonomous system) rather than cognitive deliberation.

People are supposed to laugh when others are laughing? I actually did not know that.

I don't laugh when others are laughing unless I also find what they are laughing about funny. Others laughing a lot for no apparent reason makes me uncomfortable. I don't know why they are laughing and depending on the circumstance may worry that they are laughing at me.

I don't yawn when other people yawn either.

Be careful: it isn't a universal rule. You don't want people thinking you are laughing AT them instead of laughing WITH them.

I am capable of "turning off" contagious laughter - which was helpful when I was acting. I was mostly immune to those situations you see so often on the Carol Burnett show. Of course, it never occurred to me that it might be because my neurology was different!

1401b - that's the point. The large majority of people find someone laughing to be funny in and of itself. I'm guessing this is because it's a social thing (thus the reason for laugh tracks on comedies; people laugh along and think it's funny even when it isn't - see the huge number of truly unfunny but highly popular TV sitcoms.) I am guessing this isn't a universal expression of a TOM or social cuing deficit, but it's hard to frame this situation another way.

I agree. He didn't find it funny. I couldn't explain to him why I was even laughing. It just made me wonder if there was a generalization there or even something I could understand better?

That is a good thought. Maybe it is one positive for middle school is he won't follow all the drama.

I think this is why I could not offer him any verbal explanation that made sense.

I am kind of the opposite of this. I laugh when people laugh, cry when they cry, find myself copying people's mannerisms, accents, and word choices or colloquialisms without intending to do so. Like extreme NT maybe.

I think it may have something to do with he mirror neuron theory.

momsparky, I don't understand. How is it possible for everyone to laugh when one person laughs? How is laughter contagious? This is so very interesting.

So, is emotions amongst NTs contagious then? If yes, is this why NTs harp on attitude so darn much?

I don't always laugh when people laugh. I often wonder what is so funny. I never even knew people laughed because it was contagious, I thought they laughed because they all thought it was funny. I have made myself laugh when others did or do what they did with their mouths. Now I just prefer to be myself.