Subjective Auditory Features of Sarcasm

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the subjective auditory dimensions underlying the identification of short utterances as sarcastic. One-hundred fifty-one students were asked to identify the tone of voice in brief statements heard binaurally and intended to reflect neutral, sincere, and sarcastic tones. Participants also rated these statements on seven separate dimensions (clarity, tempo, resonance, pitch, pitch variation, intensity, and intensity variation). Results revealed that the sincere tone of voice was better identified than the sarcastic tone, which in turn was more easily identified than the neutral tone. The seven dimensions all produced significant differences in ratings among the three tones of voice. Finally, factor analysis showed six factors corresponding to characteristics of the rated dimensions. These findings support the conclusion that posed sarcasm is perceived through the integration of multiple subjective auditory features, similar to the interpretation of any other prosody.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was made possible by research grants awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to Daniel Voyer. The authors are thankful to Jessica MacEachern and Jessica McCutcheon for their assistance with data collection and scoring.