Abstract
Irony has repeatedly been suggested as a language based social cognition task. It has been argued to show specific variances in psychiatric disorders and healthy adults with certain personality traits. Above that, irony comprehension is based on a complex interplay of the informational context, the relationship of the conversational partners, and the personality of the recipient. The present study developed a video-based German language test for a systematic examination of irony detection accuracy (Tuerony). The test includes (i) a stereotypical conversation partner (doctor, actor) in (ii) different perspectives (direct interaction, neutral observer) and (iii) a bilateral chat history on a conventional messenger service interface with ironic criticism, ironic praise, literal criticism, and literal praise. Based on the continuous approach of psychiatric symptoms, schizotypal, borderline, and autistic personality traits were associated with irony detection accuracy in a healthy sample. Given the often reported role of mentalization in irony detection, these associations were also investigated. First, a broad variance of irony comprehension in our healthy sample could be shown. Second, schizotypal and borderline, but not autistic traits were significantly negatively associated with irony detection accuracy. Finally, in the current healthy sample, neither variation of the conversational context nor mentalization characteristics were significantly associated with performance beyond personality traits. The current results therefore highlight two aspects for future research in irony comprehension: the importance of ecological valid tests and the role of the individual personality of the recipient.
Highlights
Irony comprehension has recently gained a remarkable increase in importance as a subtle pragmatic task for social functioning
Impairments of verbal irony comprehension have been known for a long time in clinical populations, such as persons with autism [1] and schizophrenia [2], and for a short time in non-clinical populations with high characteristics of certain personality traits
Results showed that performance on literal scales were significantly lower than on ironic scales [ironic criticism (IC) vs. literal criticism (LC) t(95) = 9.7, p < 0.001; ironic praise (IP) vs. literal praise (LP) t(95) = 3.32, p < 0.001], both highlighting the relevance to distinguish literal and ironic remarks in a paradigm of pragmatic cognition
Summary
Irony comprehension has recently gained a remarkable increase in importance as a subtle pragmatic task for social functioning. Same suggestions have been made for personality disorders [4, 5], Irony Detection and Personality Traits showing associations between a dimensional approach and psychosocial symptoms in borderline traits [6], and schizotypy [7, 8] Assuming this continuity of personality traits, the reduced performance of irony comprehension in clinical populations raises the question on whether these deficits are related to irony comprehension accuracy in healthy adults as well. Langdon and Coltheart [10] showed that healthy adults with high schizotypal trait characteristics performed significantly worse in verbal irony comprehension This relation between psychometric schizotypy and irony comprehension in a non-clinical population as observed in neuropsychological tests could not be shown by Jahshan and Sergi [11]. Rapp et al [12] found a significant decrease of activation in the middle temporal gyrus during irony comprehension in subjects with high schizotypal personality characteristics
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