Robert Provine, scholar of laughter, yawns and hiccups, 76

Robert R. Provine, a neuroscientist who brought scientific rigor to the study of laughter, yawns, hiccups and other universal human behaviors that had previously gone largely unexplored, died Oct. 17 at a hospital in Baltimore. He was 76.

The cause was complications from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, said his wife, Helen Weems. Provine had spent four decades as a psychology professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County before his retirement in 2013. He continued to teach at the university in recent years as a professor emeritus. He embodied the spirit of the popular scientist, one who takes his or her pursuits out of the laboratory and into the public square, from university libraries to public libraries, and from lecture halls to radio and television.

He was the author of two books for popular audiences, “Laughter: A Scientific Investigation” (2000) and “Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond” (2012). The New Scientist described him as “the man behind the first research into what really makes people laugh,” an endeavor that encompassed developmental and behavioral

psychology, neuroscience and theories of evolution.

“Laughter is part of this universal human vocabulary,” Provine once told NPR. “Everyone speaks this language. Just as birds of a given species all sing their species’ typical song, laughter is part of our own human song.”