Group items tagged

"Sarcasm so saturates 21st-century America that according to one study of a database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase "yeah, right" was used, it was uttered sarcastically. ... The mental gymnastics needed to perceive sarcasm includes developing a "theory of mind" to see beyond the literal meaning of the words and understand that the speaker may be thinking of something entirely different ... Kids pick up the ability to detect sarcasm at a young age. ... There appear to be regional variations in sarcasm. ... Many parts of the brain are involved in processing sarcasm, according to recent brain imaging studies."

Sarcasm is an important aspect of society that seems to develop a person's brain as well. "Exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving" and it "exercises the brain more than sincere statements do." So the extra work it takes to understand sarcasm actually does work out our brains. Apparently sarcasm has been a way to show you belong and almost have a superior quality to those around you. Very interesting!

In modern society, there is sarcasm all around us. This article describes sarcasm and how we are so surrounded by it, that it is practically the "primary language". It also discusses how we detect sarcasm and how it is naturally picked up from a young age. Lastly, researchers found that some people have a difficult time detecting sarcasm so some computer scientists have actually developed a sarcasm detection device.

Sarcasm is more often than not found to be harmful and conflict inducing. This article touches upon some of the negative outcomes of sarcasm and examines how sarcasm can be beneficial to our creativity. In a study, researchers had their participants engage in simulated conversations containing sarcastic, sincere, and neutral dialogues. Then, they were asked to complete tasks that would test their creativity. Through this study, researchers found that those who participated in sarcastic conversations did better. To create or understand sarcasm takes creative thinking because one must distinguish between the literal and actual meaning.

According to communication experts and marriage counselors, we should stay away from sarcasm because it can hurt others and harm relationships. But in this article it explains how sarcasm can help creative sparks fly.

A Johns Hopkins study found that damage to a key structure in the brain may explain why some stroke patients can't perceive sarcasm. Researchers looked at 24 people who had experienced a stroke in the right hemispheres of their brains. Those with damage to the right sagittal stratum tended to have trouble recognizing sarcasm, the researchers found. This bundle of neural fibers connects a number of brain regions, including those that process auditory and visual information. Sarcasm can be hard to interpret; it's a complex way to communicate. First, the person has to 1. understand the literal meaning of what someone says 2. detect the components of sarcasm: a wider range of pitch, greater emphatic stress, briefer pauses, lengthened syllables and intensified loudness relative to sincere speech "There're a number of cues people use, and it's both facial cues and tone of voice," noted Dr. Argye Hillis, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

This article considers sarcasm to be "the highest form of intelligence" because it symbolizes an individuals flexible and creative mind. Through research done by psychologist and neuroscientists, it has been found that the usage of sarcasm actually requires more brain power to interpret than a literary statement. This is supported by the fact that young children don't understand sarcasm while teenagers are able to fully utilize it.

This article answers the question of why sarcasm is hard to detect in texting and email conversations. It depends on things like context of the person like the relationship you have with the person you are using sarcasm with. Also, with texting, you can't convey your emotions with facial expressions like you do in face-to-face conversation. Emojis help a little bit with that, but it isn't the same as a face-to-face interaction.

The brain interprets irony or sarcasm conveyed by an emoji in the same way that sarcasm is conveyed verbally, according to a new report from researchers at the linguistics department of the University of Illinois Researchers measured brain activity of native English-speaking college students reading sentences using various emoji at the end. They read sentences with positive, negative or ironic emoji at the end.

This article dives into the idea of people attempting to teach computers the concept of sarcasm-that people do not always mean exactly what they say. If the computer is solely relying on the words of a message, it is extremely difficult to recognize sarcastic remarks; the accompaniment of images will be a stronger indication of if the words should be taken literally or sarcastically. A potential implication of this technology would be to gauge how the public really feels about something in particular. The article goes on to describe how researchers are tackling the issue: they have written computer algorithms based on how they've observed sarcasm being used online.

This article discusses from several perspectives on how sarcasm directly affects our personal relationships. Several studies were included in this article, but it was concluded that interestingly, "those who engaged in a sarcastic conversation faired better on creativity tasks." This article also comments on the common negative connotation that comes with sarcasm, but counters this perspective through an analysis done on several studies, which ultimately sheds light on how sarcasm can "harness creative benefits" within our personal relationships.

half-way down the page there is a list of posts by linguists about sarcasm

This article goes over the subtleties of sarcasm and why at times it has negative effects

There was nothing very interesting in Katherine P. Rankin's study of sarcasm - at least, nothing worth your important time. All she did was use an M.R.I. to find the place in the brain where the ability to detect sarcasm resides. But then, you probably already knew it was in the right parahippocampal gyrus.

An explanation of sarcasm, how we use it, and why we use it.

This article explains how to the brain reacts to and detects sarcasm in language.

has a link to a link to the original study :)

Talks about kids and how they react to different forms of sarcasm.

This article gives an overview of sarcasm and how hard/easy it is to detect it.