Nutty Science - The Masked Tickler!

[theshire]

The Daily Mail today has a round-up of the "ten silliest science experiments of all time"...and guess what is among them?

The masked tickler

In 1933, Clarence Leuba, a professor of psychology in Ohio, used his wife and newborn son to try to find out why we laugh when we're tickled.

Leuba ordered that no one could laugh while tickling the child, or while being tickled within earshot of him.

If the boy laughed when tickled, this would show his response was inbuilt, not something he learned from those around him.

The household became a tickle-free zone, except during sessions in which Leuba tickled the boy while hiding his face behind a mask.

By the age of seven months, the boy was screaming with laughter when tickled.

Three years later, his younger sister reacted in a similar fashion, leading Leuba to conclude laughter is an innate response to being tickled.