The concert

The text used in the experimentation is from a consecrated Brazilian comic tale author. The whole history may be assumed to be composed by ten paragraphs, which may be grouped in three sections, according to the author’s three steps plan to develop the tale(Fig. 1): to set the context, then to generate a discordance with this context, and finally to set the punching line creating the humorous conclusion. Each section it is funny by itself. The first two paragraphs set the context to the third punch paragraph. The first section: begins with a paragraph setting the stage for classical concert.The second paragraph speaks about the musicians, and highlight what may happen to transform this ordinary into a funny concert. The third paragraph introduces the principal personage, a soccer fan that makes the situation unusual. The second section: begins with the violinist trying to explain the fan that it cannot be part of the program; in the sequence the fan treatens to play a POF! and this scares the musician, and finaly the fan complains that Mozart has no musical taste because it did not provided a role for his tuba. The third section: starts with every body beginning to fight; the violoncellist’s moustache change place to the violinist woman’s face and because of this the fan assumes her as his mammy. Finally, a cow heard enter the stage, as predicted by the author.

 

The text was tape recorded by a native portuguese speaking female and a professional cartoonist illustrated each of the ten paragraphs (as shown in fig. 1). After listening to the text, the volunteers were asked to associated some randomly chosen scenes with the listenned paragraphs. This was used to check the attention paid by the volunteer to the text listening.

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