Using Sarcasm to Compliment: Context, Intonation, and the Perception of Statements with a Negative Literal Meaning

Abstract

The present study extended findings of contrast effects in an auditory sarcasm perception task manipulating context and tone of voice. In contrast to previous research that had used sarcastic and sincere statements with a positive literal meaning, the present experiment examined how statements with a negative literal meaning would affect the results. Eighty-four undergraduate students completed a task in which an ambiguous, positive, or negative computer-generated context spoken in a flat emotional tone was followed by a statement with a negative literal meaning spoken in a sincere or sarcastic tone of voice. Results for both the proportion of sarcastic responses and response time showed a significant context by tone interaction, reflecting relatively fast sarcastic responses for the situation in which sarcasm would turn the statement into a compliment (positive context, sarcastic intonation) and fast sincere responses when the literal insult was emphasized (negative context, sincere intonation). However, the ambiguous context produced a pattern of results modulated by the tone of voice that was similar to that observed when the context/intonation pairing could not be interpreted as a compliment or an insult (negative context/sarcastic intonation or positive context/sincere intonation). These findings add to the body of literature suggesting that situational contrast, context, and intonation influence how sarcasm is perceived while demonstrating the importance of the literal meaning in sarcasm perception. They can be interpreted in the context of models of sarcasm comprehension that postulate two stages of processing.

Appendix: Contexts Used in the Experiment (Adapted from Gardner & Brownell, 1986)

Statement	Context	Situation
Roger handled that case poorly	Positive	Jane and Roger were lawyers in a law firm. Jane hated Roger because he teased her for defending clients who could not afford to pay. One day Jane was at the courthouse while Roger was defending a wealthy man. He performed great; completely handling the very complex case. Jane said to another lawyer...
	Ambiguous	Jane and Roger were lawyers in a law firm. Jane hated Roger because he teased her for defending clients who could not afford to pay. One day Jane was at the courthouse while Roger was defending a wealthy man. He performed fine, as hoped, handling what was a simple case. Jane said to another lawyer...
	Negative	Jane and Roger were lawyers in a law firm. Jane hated Roger because he teased her for defending clients who could not afford to pay. One day Jane was at the courthouse while Roger was defending a wealthy man. He performed terribly; completely mishandling the simple case. Jane said to another lawyer...
Don plays bridge poorly	Positive	Betsy and Don liked to play cards and were members of a bridge club. One night when Don and Betsy were partners, they won a difficult game because Don had played very skillfully. Betsy said to another player...
	Ambiguous	Betsy and Don liked to play cards and were members of a bridge club. One night when Don and Betsy were partners, they won a game because they both had played well. Betsy said to another player...
	Negative	Betsy and Don liked to play cards and were members of a bridge club. One night when Don and Betsy were partners, they lost an easy game because Don had played very poorly. Betsy said to another player...
Max makes shoes poorly	Positive	Jenny and Max were shoemakers. Jenny was losing a lot of business to Max because Max sold his shoes for less than Jenny. Max was able to do this because he used low-quality materials, but the shoes Max made lasted a long time because he was a great shoemaker. Jenny said to another shoemaker...
	Ambiguous	Jenny and Max were shoemakers. Jenny was losing a lot of business to Max because Max sold his shoes for less than Jenny. Max was able to do this because he used low-quality materials, but the shoes Max made fell apart quickly because of the materials he used. Jenny said to another shoemaker...
	Negative	Jenny and Max were shoemakers. Jenny was losing a lot of business to Max because Max sold his shoes for less than Jenny. Max was able to do this because he used low-quality materials. The shoes Max made fell apart quickly because he made bad shoes. Jenny said to another shoemaker...
Doreen is a slow reader	Positive	Alice and Doreen were in the same English class. At the end of the semester the teacher awarded a prize to the student who read the most books. Both had wanted the prize, but Doreen read very fast and finished more books than anyone else. Alice said to another student in the class...
	Ambiguous	Alice and Doreen were in the same English class. At the end of the semester the teacher awarded a prize to the student who read the most books. Both had wanted the prize, but someone else received it instead. Alice said to another student in the class...
	Negative	Alice and Doreen were in the same English class. At the end of the semester the teacher awarded a prize to the student who read the most books. Both had wanted the prize, but Alice won. Doreen was slow and finished few books. Alice said to another student in the class...
Olivia is a bad cook	Positive	Olivia and Penny shared a house with three other people. They all took turns cooking dinner. It was Olivia’s night to cook and she made lasagna. It came out great and was delicious. Penny said to another roommate...
	Ambiguous	Olivia and Penny shared a house with three other people. They all took turns cooking dinner. It was Olivia’s night to cook and she made lasagna. It came out of the oven and turned out okay but not great. Penny said to another roommate...
	Negative	Olivia and Penny shared a house with three other people. They all took turns cooking dinner. It was Olivia’s night to cook and she made lasagna. It came out burnt and almost impossible to eat. Penny said to another roommate...
Fred is a bad soloist	Positive	Clara and Fred were violinists in the orchestra. Clara was the lead and Fred was second. Clara was jealous of Fred because the conductor chose Fred to perform a brief solo. During the rehearsal Fred played very well without making any mistakes. Clara said to another violinist...
	Ambiguous	Clara and Fred were violinists in the orchestra. Clara was the lead violinist and Fred was second. The conductor chose Fred to perform a brief solo. During the rehearsal Fred played his solo and Clara said to another violinist...
	Negative	Clara and Fred were violinists in the orchestra. Clara was the lead and Fred was second. Clara was jealous of Fred because the conductor chose Fred to perform a brief solo. During the rehearsal Fred played poorly making a lot of mistakes. Clara said to another violinist...