Significatif avec le p-hacking !

International audienc

Les composantes faciales et vocales de l’ironie

International audienc

De l’usage des tests : Aspects métrologiques, statistiques et interprétatifs

International audienc

Paraverbal Expression of Verbal Irony: Vocal Cues Matter and Facial Cues Even More

International audienceVerbal irony is a rhetorical device that is not only verbal but also paraverbal. In the present study, we explored the paraverbal expression of verbal irony which has been largely underinvestigated, especially facial expressions. Given the role played by facial expressions in the detection of emotions, we hypothesized that speakers can communicate irony by facial expression alone. We asked 104 speakers to pronounce the same utterance, sometimes ironically, sometimes not. Naive judges were able to detect which speakers were ironic with increasing accuracy across the following three conditions: prosody only, facial expressions only, and both prosody and facial expressions. We then undertook a systematic description of the utterances, to identify which paraverbal cues induced the highest ironicalness ratings among the judges. Slow speech rate, then expressive movements of the mouth, then eyebrow flashes were the three most influential cues. Overall, facial cues explained more variance than vocal cues. Our results did not support the existence of a single, specific set of paraverbal ironic cues. They did, however, show that speakers routinely produce paraverbal cues, and that these cues, especially facial ones, allow their irony to be detected. The implications for models of irony comprehension are discussed

Disappointed and Distant: The Emotional Facial Expressions of Ironic Speakers

International audienc

How children tell a (prosocial) lie from an (ironic) joke: The role of shared knowledge

International audienceUnderstanding counterfactual utterances is a major challenge for children, because of the many ways in which they can be interpreted (pretence, errors, figures of speech, lies). In the present study, 7-year-olds and adults determined whether counterfactual utterances were prosocial lies or irony, depending on whether the counterfactuality was known only to the speaker (unshared knowledge) or to both interlocutors (shared knowledge). When the counterfactuality was shared by the interlocutors, both the 7-year-olds and the adults were less likely to interpret the speaker's counterfactual utterance as an attempted lie, and more likely to conclude that the speaker was being ironic. Adults were better than children at distinguishing irony from lies, but both age groups exhibited the same response pattern, namely a bias toward lying. This bias did not prevent the adults from deciding that the speaker was being ironic when the counterfactuality was shared, whereas children responded at chance level. In children, the association between task performance and theory-of-mind skills was nonsignificant, with a very small effect size. We discuss the possibility that, contrary to widespread belief, distinguishing irony from lies does not necessarily involve theory of mind (ToM)

Les enfants d'âge scolaire identifient l'ironie sur la base de l'expression faciale des locuteurs

International audienc