Difficulties in understanding irony and sarcasm are part of the social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia. A number of studies have reported higher error rates during comprehension in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationships of these impairments to schizotypal personality traits and other language deficits, such as the comprehension of proverbs, are unclear. We inv...

We investigated children's understanding of irony and sensitivity to irony's meanness and humor. In Study 1, 89 participants (5-6-year-olds, 8-9-year-olds, adults) heard ironic and literal criticisms, and literal compliments. Comprehension of irony emerged between 5 and 6 years of age. Ratings of humor increased with age; ratings of meanness did not (showing that all ages perceived irony as mor...

Acquiring vocabulary has always been recognized as a significant and challenging part of language learning process. In this study, the researcher examined the extent to which form recall of target lexical items by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) is affected by a) repetition and b) by the type of target item; single words versus collocations. The treatment consisted of non-commun...

How do we understand the experiences of characters in a movie? Similar to real life, viewers attribute mental states through process known as Theory Mind (ToM). Filmmakers commonly use Dramatic Irony, narrative device where audience knows something that at least one does not. From social neuroscience perspective, understanding cognitive mechanisms underlie dramatic irony can provide remarkable ...

Irony is an effective but challenging mode of communication that allows a speaker to express sentiment-rich viewpoints with concision, sharpness and humour. Irony is especially common in online documents that express subjective and deeply-felt opinions, and thus represents a significant obstacle to the accurate analysis of sentiment in web texts. In this paper we look at one commonly used frami...

Acquiring vocabulary has always been recognized as a significant and challenging part of language learning process. In this study, the researcher examined the extent to which form recall of target lexical items by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) is affected by a) repetition and b) by the type of target item; single words versus collocations. The treatment consisted of non-commun...