题型：阅读理解 题类：模拟题 难易度：普通
湖南省长沙市雅礼中学2019届高三下学期英语一模试卷
Laughter is part of the universal human vocabulary. All members of the human species understand it. Unlike English or French or Swahili, we don't have to learn to speak it. We re born with the capacity to laugh.
Very little is known about the specific brain mechanisms responsible for laughter. Contrary to folk wisdom, most laughter is not about humor; it is about relationships. To find out when and why people laugh, I went with several assistants to local malls and recorded what happened just before people laughed. Over a 10-year period, we studied over 2, 000 cases of naturally occurring laughter.
We found that most laughter does not necessarily follow jokes. People may laugh after a variety of statements, such as, "Here comes Mary," "How did you do on the test?" or "Do you have a rubber band?" These certainly aren't jokes.
We believe laughter evolved from the panting (喘气的) behavior of our ancient ancestors. Today, if we tickle (使发痒) chimps, they don't laugh. But, instead, they produce a panting sound. That's the sound of ape laughter, and it's the root of human laughter.
Apes laugh in the kinds of situations that lead to human laughter, like games that involve chasing. Other animals produce sounds during play, but they are so different from laughter. Rats, for example, produce high sounds during play and when tickled, but these are very different in sound from human laughter.
Laughter is often positive, but it can be negative too. There's a difference between "laughing with" and "laughing at". People who laugh at others may be trying to drive them out of the group.
No one has actually counted how much people of different ages laugh, but young children probably laugh the most. At ages 5 and 6 we probably laugh more than at any other times. Adults laugh less than children, probably because they play less.
Work now underway will tell us more about the brain mechanisms behind laughter, how it has evolved, and why we're so susceptible to tickling.
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