Blunderov
Archon
Gender: 
Posts: 3160
Reputation: 8.90
Rate Blunderov
"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
|
 |
RE: virus: Researchers Pinpoint Brain's Sarcasm Sensor
« on: 2005-05-28 16:25:34 » |
 |
[Blunderov] I wonder if there is a rhetorical question sensor? I and my
siblings have a tendency to answer the damn things so there is some
suspicion that this could be a mutation. Be afraid...
Best Regards.
http://health.ivillage.com/mentalhealth/0,,wbnews_7rfjn8hj,00.html?dst=r
ss
Researchers Pinpoint Brain's Sarcasm Sensor
Without it, snappy comments are a mystery
By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, May 23 (HealthDay News) -- Oh yeah, right!
No, it's true -- many of you don't go a day without dishing out several
doses of sarcasm. But some brain-damaged people can't comprehend
sarcasm, and Israeli researchers think it's because a specific brain
region has gone dark.
The region, according to the researchers, handles the task of detecting
hidden meaning, a crucial component of sarcasm. If that part of the
brain is out of commission, the irony doesn't come through, the
scientists report in the May issue of Neuropsychology.
"People with prefrontal brain damage suffer from difficulties in
understanding other people's mental states, and they lack empathy," said
study co-author Simone Shamay-Tsoory, a researcher at the University of
Haifa. "Therefore, they can't understand what the speaker really is
talking about, and get only the literal meaning."
The findings, Shamay-Tsoory said, could help rehabilitation centers do a
better job of helping brain-damaged patients adjust to the world and
understand other people.
In their study, Shamay-Tsoory and her colleagues first enrolled 58
subjects -- 25 participants with prefrontal-lobe damage, 17 who were
healthy and 16 who had damage to the posterior lobe of the brain.
Then they tested each person by exposing them to several "neutral" and
sarcastic comments recorded by actors as part of a story. This "sarcasm
meter" was designed to gauge how well the subjects could comprehend the
unique kind of irony that is sarcasm.
For example, actors read phrases such as "don't work too hard" in both a
neutral sense (meaning "you're a hard worker") and a sarcastic sense
(meaning "you're a real slacker"). Each comment came in proper context
as part of a story about, say, a worker who's sleeping or a worker who's
grinding away at his job.
All the subjects understood the sarcasm except for those with damage to
the prefrontal area, which is above the eye sockets and behind the
forehead. And among those, people with damage to a specific area known
as the ventromedial area had the most trouble deciphering sarcasm.
The researchers think lesions in several parts of the brain can
contribute to an inability to understand sarcasm. But, they wrote, this
particular area is important because it draws on your innate recognition
of the emotions of other people -- empathy -- and past experiences to
comprehend a speaker's intentions.
Brian Knutson, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Stanford
University, said the findings make sense because the brain's cortex
handles a variety of sophisticated tasks, and sarcasm could be on the
list.
The findings also reflect a growing interest in how emotion is processed
by the brain. "Emotion has not been a popular topic in science for a
long time," because it's difficult to measure, he said, but things are
changing.
More information
Get details about the brain's inner workings from howstuffworks.com.
SOURCES: Brian Knutson, Ph.D., assistant professor, neuroscience,
Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; Simone Shamay-Tsoory, Ph.D.,
researcher, University of Haifa, Israel; May 2005 Neuropsychology
---
To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
|
Author
Logged
