Prospector

Understanding Sarcasm: Nature or Nurture?

I have long suspected that people who do not understand my humor must have been hit on the head or have some other kind of brain damage.

The anatomy of sarcasm: Researchers reveal how the brain handles this complex communication

The ability to comprehend sarcasm depends upon a carefully orchestrated sequence of complex cognitive skills based in specific parts of the brain.
The findings appear in the May issue of Neuropsychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).
The Israeli psychologists who conducted the research explain that for sarcasm to score, listeners must grasp the speaker's intentions in the context of the situation. This calls for sophisticated social thinking and "theory of mind," or whether we understand that everyone thinks different thoughts.
Participants with prefrontal damage were impaired in comprehending sarcasm, whereas the people in the other two groups had no such problem.

The findings highlight the importance of lesion size in sub-regions of the frontal lobe because the extent of the right ventromedial lesion was significantly related to performance in the sarcasm task: The worse the damage, the greater the impairment.

The anatomy of sarcasm: Researchers reveal how the brain handles this complex communication

posted by Prospector @ 7:30 AM