When is irony effortful?

Abstract

Whereas some studies indicate that ironic—as opposed to literal—readings of utterances take longer to process, others indicate that the 2 are processed at comparable speeds. We propose that mindreading processes are at least partly responsible for the mixed results, as we present 3 experiments that include stories having a target utterance with either an Ironic or Literal reading. Experiment 1 replicates earlier findings (Spotorno, Koun, Prado, Van Der Henst, & Noveck, 2012) showing that ironic readings take longer than literal ones when fillers include decoys, stories that call for an ironic remark but present a banal utterance instead and thus diffuse participants’ expectations for irony. Starting with Experiment 2, decoys are removed, leading to effects that are arguably revealing of Theory of Mind processes. One is an Early–Late effect, which occurs when ironic utterances are read as readily as literal ones in the 2nd half of an experimental session, creating “mixed” results in the laboratory. In Experiment 3, we further added antecedents before a critical event so that, later, the target utterance would be echoing an explicitly stated thought and would facilitate irony comprehension (Gibbs, 1986; Sperber & Wilson, 1981). Results reveal an Early–Late effect here, too. Further evidence of Theory of Mind activity follows from analyses of participants’ Social Skill subscale scores in the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001). Socially inclined participants are more likely than the socially disinclined to use a story’s negative event to portend the arrival of an irony; in contrast, socially disinclined participants appear more reactive than the socially inclined to explicit antecedents.

Beyond words: Pragmatic inference in behavioral variant of frontotemporal degeneration

“…The interpretation of a metaphor or of an ironic statement requires a listener to go beyond the literal meaning of an utterance and to take into consideration other possible interpretations (Clark & Gerrig, 1984; R. J. Gibbs & Gerrig, 1989; Grice, 1975; Sperber & Wilson, 1986; Spotorno & Noveck, 2014). Figurative language is arguably a more complex case of pragmatic inference that requires additional world knowledge beyond the literal linguistic utterance as well as metarepresentational skills (Gildea & Glucksberg, 1983; Sperber & Wilson, 2008; Wilson & Sperber, 2012).…”

How does childhood bilingualism and bi-dialectalism affect the interpretation and processing of pragmatic meanings?

“…In this respect, it has been suggested that pragmatic intrerpretation depends on a Theory of Mind (ToM), the cognitive component that is responsible for ascribing mental states (e.g., beliefs, intentions) to oneself and/or to others and for interpreting the behaviour of others based on these mental states. Again, experimental evidence has shown that ToM-related processes (e.g., taking into account speaker's reliability or knowledge) are involved during online pragmatic interpretation (see e.g., Breheny, Ferguson & Katsos, 2013;Grodner & Sedivy, 2011;Spotorno & Noveck, 2014) and that successful pragmatic understanding in children may depend on the development of a Theory of Mind (Filippova, 2014).…”

An eye-tracking investigation of written sarcasm comprehension: The roles of familiarity and context.

“…In a typical experiment, participants would be presented with scenarios that would end in an utterance that could be interpreted as either literal or sarcastic. On the one hand, evidence from self-paced reading studies (e.g., Giora, 1995; Giora, Fein, & Schwartz, 1998; Spotorno & Noveck, 2014), and eye-tracking studies (e.g., Filik & Moxey, 2010; Kaakinen, Olkoniemi, Kinnari, & Hyönä, 2014) showing that sarcasm comprehension takes longer than literal language comprehension, has been taken to support modular accounts. Other evidence showing that sarcasm can be comprehended as fast as literal language, again from self-paced reading (e.g., Gibbs, 1986), and additionally from visual-world paradigm studies (e.g., Kowatch, Whalen, & Pexman, 2013), has been taken as support for more interactive accounts.…”