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Abstract
To understand ironic remarks such as “great”, uttered by someone after receiving unpleasant news, requires attending to inconsistencies between the situation and a literal understanding (i.e., unpleasant news does not tend to be ‘great’). The language user then needs to activate alternative, in this case ironic interpretations, and discard literal ones as part of disambiguation processes. Of course, these operations occur in tandem with many others during language comprehension, and as such they add to the cognitive load.
We hypothesised that the additional cognitive demands imposed by irony, and the need to divide attentional resources to multiple concurrent processes, would make irony particularly troublesome for adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by hyperactivity, impulsiveness and/or inattention. We further hypothesised that the processing of irony might be modulated by variability in attention control (or executive attention), and specifically by differences in fluid intelligence and working memory capacity.
In this talk we present preliminary findings from an eye-tracking reading task, comparing the performance and eye-movement behaviour of adults with and without ADHD, when processing verbal irony. Although data analysis is still ongoing, the findings to date suggest interesting group differences, and differential involvement of attention control mechanisms in the processing of irony.
About the speaker
Marianna is a postdoctoral research fellow at UiO working on the AttCom project: “The role of attention in communication”, investigating how attention affects communicative processes across different languages. She is particularly interested in how people understand figurative language during on-line reading and in exploring the factors that are implicated in efficient processing.
This event is open to everyone, no registration needed.
To participate over Zoom, please click here.