The communicative style of a speaker can affect language comprehension? ERP evidence from the comprehension of irony

No laughing matter: How the presence of laughing witnesses changes the perception of insults.

“…That would mean that the differences that we observed between insults and compliments in the presence of a laughing crowd are not solely due to the differential processing of the insults, but (partially) to the compliments. However, previous work on sarcasm and irony processing (Katz et al, 2004;Regel et al, 2010;Spotorno et al, 2013) shows that sarcastic statements actually increase the amplitude of the late positivity in the ERP. As such, if adding laughter to a compliment would indeed alter its meaning from positive to sarcastic, this would mean an increase in amplitude of the late positivity for compliments with Laughter, compared to No Laughter.…”

“…This shows that a speaker's social status directly affects how their utterance is processed. In a similar vein, Regel and colleagues (Regel, Coulson, & Gunter, 2010) showed that knowledge about the personality of specific people influences language perception. Previous research on sarcasm processing has shown that ironic or sarcastic statements evokes a larger late positive component compared to literal statements (Katz, Blasko, & Kazmerski, 2004;Spotorno, Cheylus, Van Der Henst, & Noveck, 2013), an indication that sarcasm evokes more intense processing of a sentence than literal messages.…”

“…Previous research on sarcasm processing has shown that ironic or sarcastic statements evokes a larger late positive component compared to literal statements (Katz, Blasko, & Kazmerski, 2004;Spotorno, Cheylus, Van Der Henst, & Noveck, 2013), an indication that sarcasm evokes more intense processing of a sentence than literal messages. However, when the reader or listener knows that the person who uttered a sarcastic statement is actually a very sarcastic person (based on previous utterances from that same person), this immediately changes how sarcastic statements are processed: When readers know that a person is likely to use sarcasm, sarcastic sentences are perceived just as literal messages, and receive no additional processing (Regel et al, 2010).…”

A social Bayesian brain: How social knowledge can shape visual perception

“…Specific social knowledge related to a particular stimulus or person can also directly affect perception. One interesting example from language perception focusses on sarcasm (Regel, Coulson, & Gunter, 2010). Statements that convey irony or sarcasm, such as describing a day spent binge-watching Netflix as 'very productive', are known to evoke increased early syntactic processing (as indicated by the P600, Spotorno, Cheylus, Van Der Henst, & Noveck, 2013).…”

“…Statements that convey irony or sarcasm, such as describing a day spent binge-watching Netflix as 'very productive', are known to evoke increased early syntactic processing (as indicated by the P600, Spotorno, Cheylus, Van Der Henst, & Noveck, 2013). However, when participants know certain individuals to often speak in a sarcastic way, their ironic statements no longer evoke this relative increase in linguistic processing (Regel et al, 2010). In this study, participants were not asked for explicit judgements or responses -reducing the likelihood of response bias.…”