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Laughter is a nonverbal vocalization occurring in every known culture, ubiquitous across all forms of human social interaction. Here, we examined whether listeners around the world, irrespective of their own native language and culture, can distinguish between spontaneous laughter and volitional laughter-laugh types likely generated by different vocal-production systems. Using a set of 36 recorded laughs produced by female English speakers in tests involving 884 participants from 21 societies across six regions of the world, we asked listeners to determine whether each laugh was real or fake, and listeners differentiated between the two laugh types with an accuracy of 56% to 69%. Acoustic analysis revealed that sound features associated with arousal in vocal production predicted listeners' judgments fairly uniformly across societies. These results demonstrate high consistency across cultures in laughter judgments, underscoring the potential importance of nonverbal vocal communicative phenomena in human affiliation and cooperation.

Laughter is a nonverbal vocal expression that often communicates positive affect and cooperative intent in humans. Temporally coincident laughter occurring within groups is a potentially rich cue of affiliation to overhearers. We examined listeners' judgments of affiliation based on brief, decontextualized instances of colaughter between either established friends or recently acquainted strangers. In a sample of 966 participants from 24 societies, people reliably distinguished friends from strangers with an accuracy of 53-67%. Acoustic analyses of the individual laughter segments revealed that, across cultures, listeners' judgments were consistently predicted by voicing dynamics, suggesting perceptual sensitivity to emotionally triggered spontaneous production. Colaughter affords rapid and accurate appraisals of affiliation that transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries, and may constitute a universal means of signaling cooperative relationships.

Pet ownership and interactions with animals confer various physiological and psychological benefits to humans. Although interactions with animals are commonplace, there is no consensus in the literature on the actual impact of animal exposure on prosociality. Hence, this meta-analysis investigated 20 eligible studies (n = 4,116, k = 48) and provided an extensive examination into the different potential moderators of the relationship between human–animal interaction (HAI) and prosociality, such as the distinction between empathy and prosocial behavior, HAI characteristics, and sample characteristics. Overall, a small positive effect size was found (d = 0.22), suggesting that human exposure to animals is associated with an increase in empathy and prosocial behaviors. Additionally, the type of prosociality measure, nature of human–animal interaction, animal species, and animal class significantly moderated the relationship between human–animal interaction and prosociality. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these findings and highlight areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Game-based constructivist learning has gained considerable attention as educational institutions aim to move from traditional instructional teaching to interactive and collaborative methods. The question is less asked of "whether" games should be used in teaching but rather "how" games should be used to create deep learning in students. In light of this movement, the "Grade Inflation Game," or "GIGAME," was developed. This case study tackles the research question of how games may be designed to harness the benefits of constructivist learning. It first documents the conceptualization of GIGAME and next proposes theoretical frameworks that can be used to guide the development and evaluation of constructivist learning games. Through trial runs on two undergraduate law of torts classes, feedback was gathered from students and the instructor of these classes regarding their perceptions of GIGAME, including learning effectiveness and satisfaction. The feedback suggests that GIGAME can serve as a form of game-based constructivist learning as most students indicated that the game helped consolidate their course knowledge while having fun. These qualitative findings are useful for guiding the development of other games that similarly aim to promote socially interactive and constructivist learning environments. This case study recommends the use of GIGAME in classes, although refinements can still be made to its gameplay.