Humor Effect
Bizarreness Effect
The observation that humorous items are more easily remembered than non-humorous ones, which might be explained by the distinctiveness of humor itself, the act of understanding the humor, or simply the emotions that the humor causes.
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Origin
Steven R. Schmidt published groundbreaking research on the humor effect in 1994 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, demonstrating that humorous sentences were better remembered than nonhumorous versions on both free- and cued-recall tests. His research distinguished humor from mere bizarreness, finding that humorous cartoons were remembered better than weird ones. Later work by Schmidt and Williams (2001) showed that bizarreness effects are mediated by humor, not just incongruity.
Updated June 1, 2018