PaperActive

Timing is Everything: Temporal Scaffolding of Semantic Surprise in Humor

quality89

Updated 8 h ago · first seen 11 Sept 2026

paper_01M294G5TA64N34K8AQYXZCM64

Published: 11 Sept 2026; T1 · 8 h ago
arXiv: 2605.00143; T1 · 8 h ago
Category: cs.CL; T1 · 8 h ago

Abstract

Humor is a fundamental cognitive phenomenon in which humans derive pleasure from the expectation violations and their resolution, exemplifying the brain's dynamic capacity for predictive processing. Classical humor theories emphasize semantic incongruity as the primary driver of amusement, yet overlook temporal dynamics despite comedians' intuition that "timing is everything." The extent to which temporal structure contributes to humor appreciation and how it interacts with semantic content remains poorly understood. Here, we propose the Dual Prediction Violation (DPV) framework to capture the interplay between content and timing. By analyzing 828 professional Chinese stand-up performances, we show that temporal features substantially outweigh semantic incongruity in predicting audience appreciation. Specifically, we find that peak semantic violations matter more than average incongruity levels, and pauses systematically lengthen before high-surprise punchlines--a strategic coupling that distinguishes successful from unsuccessful performances. These findings reframe humor as temporally scaffolded, where timing and semantic content operate in strategic coordination rather than independently. Our DPV framework bridges humor theory with predictive processing, demonstrating that temporal structure plays a central role in naturalistic humor appreciation with implications for understanding multi-scale prediction integration in linguistic processing.

Authors 5

Yuxi Ma, Yongqian Peng, Junchen Lyu, Chi Zhang, Yixin Zhu

Specification

Official page: arxiv.org/abs/2605.00143
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh
Arxiv announce type: replace
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh
arXiv id: 2605.00143
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh
Categories: cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh
PDF: arxiv.org/pdf/2605.00143
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh
Primary category: cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh
Published: 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 8 h agohigh

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Provenance

Attributed facts

Source tiers

T19

Freshest observation

8 h ago

Conflicts

None

As of

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Claim history

9 claims · 9 properties

Official pageofficial_url1

Claim history for Official page
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.00143	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Abstractabstract1

Claim history for Abstract
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
Humor is a fundamental cognitive phenomenon in which humans derive pleasure from the expectation violations and their resolution, exemplifying the brain's dynamic capacity for predictive processing. Classical humor theories emphasize semantic incongruity as the primary driver of amusement, yet overlook temporal dynamics despite comedians' intuition that "timing is everything." The extent to which temporal structure contributes to humor appreciation and how it interacts with semantic content remains poorly understood. Here, we propose the Dual Prediction Violation (DPV) framework to capture the interplay between content and timing. By analyzing 828 professional Chinese stand-up performances, we show that temporal features substantially outweigh semantic incongruity in predicting audience appreciation. Specifically, we find that peak semantic violations matter more than average incongruity levels, and pauses systematically lengthen before high-surprise punchlines--a strategic coupling that distinguishes successful from unsuccessful performances. These findings reframe humor as temporally scaffolded, where timing and semantic content operate in strategic coordination rather than independently. Our DPV framework bridges humor theory with predictive processing, demonstrating that temporal structure plays a central role in naturalistic humor appreciation with implications for understanding multi-scale prediction integration in linguistic processing.	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Arxiv announce typearxiv_announce_type1

Claim history for Arxiv announce type
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
replace	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

arXiv idarxiv_id1

Claim history for arXiv id
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
2605.00143	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Authorsauthors1

Claim history for Authors
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
Yuxi Ma, Yongqian Peng, Junchen Lyu, Chi Zhang, Yixin Zhu	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Categoriescategories1

Claim history for Categories
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
cs.CL	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

PDFpdf_url1

Claim history for PDF
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.00143	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Primary categoryprimary_category1

Claim history for Primary category
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
cs.CL	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Publishedpublished_at1

Claim history for Published
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
11 Sept 2026	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →

Source documents
Source	Document	Type	Tier	Last observed	Snapshots
arXiv (Atom API + RSS)	rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.CL	feed	T1· Official	6 h ago	1

Tier 1 = official/primary, 2 = quality secondary, 3 = community, 4 = unverified. Every snapshot is archived; see all sources and the methodology.