Professor Sophie Scott is Wellcome Trust senior fellow at University College London (UCL), researching the neuroscience of voices, speech, and laughter. She is also Deputy Director of UCL's Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. In 2014 she published a paper on The social life of laughter: "Laughter is often considered to be the product of humour. However, laughter is a social emotion, occurring most often in interactions, where it is associated with bonding, agreement, affection, and emotional regulation. Laughter is underpinned by complex neural systems, allowing it to be used flexibly. In humans and chimpanzees, social (voluntary) laughter is distinctly different from evoked (involuntary) laughter, a distinction which is also seen in brain imaging studies of laughter".

Professor Sophie Scott, Unicersity College London, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience

http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=SKSCO15