Do you remember the commercial about cowboys trying to herd cats that aired during the Super Bowl?

Dr. Carlson says that after controlling for photographic image, keyword, order of presentation, length of phrases and the mental incongruity created by the inspirational and humorous phrases, subjects’ ratings of humor explained an additional 50 percent of the variance in recall performance. That indicates the perception of humor can impact what we remember even after all of these other variables are controlled. “That’s a very large effect to observe, as a 25 percent variance generally is considered a large effect,” Dr. Carlson said.

In order for humor to be beneficial to advertisers, Dr. Carlson says the humor used in an ad must be closely linked to the advertised product, such as GEICO’s gecko commercials.