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

Turcan, Alexandra; Filik, Ruth

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Authors

Alexandra Turcan

RUTH FILIK ruth.filik@nottingham.ac.uk
Associate Professor



Abstract

This paper addresses a current theoretical debate between the standard pragmatic model, the graded salience hypothesis, and the implicit display theory, by investigating the roles of the context and of the properties of the sarcastic utterance itself in the comprehension of a sarcastic remark. Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted where we manipulated the speaker’s expectation in the context and the familiarity of the sarcastic remark. The results of the first eye-tracking study showed that literal comments were read faster than unfamiliar sarcastic comments, regardless of whether an explicit expectation was present in the context. The results of the second eye-tracking study indicated an early processing difficulty for unfamiliar sarcastic comments, but not for familiar sarcastic comments. Later reading time measures indicated a general difficulty for sarcastic comments. Overall, results seem to suggest that the familiarity of the utterance does indeed affect the time-course of sarcasm processing (supporting the graded salience hypothesis), while there is no evidence that making the speaker’s expectation explicit in the context affects it as well (thus failing to support the implicit display theory).

Citation

Turcan, A., & Filik, R. (2016). An eye-tracking investigation of written sarcasm comprehension: the roles of familiarity and context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42(12), https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000285

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 12, 2016
Online Publication Date Aug 8, 2016
Publication Date Dec 31, 2016
Deposit Date Apr 20, 2016
Publicly Available Date Aug 8, 2016
Journal Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition
Print ISSN 0278-7393
Electronic ISSN 1939-1285
Publisher American Psychological Association
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 42
Issue 12
DOI https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000285
Keywords Sarcasm; Irony; Language; Comprehension; Figurative language; Eye-tracking
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/831561
Publisher URL http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xlm/42/12/1867
Contract Date Apr 20, 2016

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