Science of Sarcasm, yeah Right..

One of my friends always uses to say that there is very thin line between sarcasm and joke. In our world people take help of some words to express their views in a funny way that nobody can get hurts and they also convey their disagreement to others.

The Greek root for sarcasm, sarkazein, means to tear flesh like dogs. Sarcastic statements are sort of a true lie. You’re saying something you don’t literally mean, and the communication works as intended only if your listener gets that you’re insincere. Sarcasm has a two-faced quality: it’s both funny and mean. This dual nature has led to contradictory theories on why we use it.
Actually, scientists are finding that the ability to detect sarcasm really is useful. For the past 20 years, researchers from linguists to psychologists to neurologists have been studying our ability to perceive snarky remarks and gaining new insights into how the mind works.

Sarcasm seems to exercise the brain more than sincere statements do. Scientists who have monitored the electrical activity of the brains of test subjects exposed to sarcastic statements have found that brains have to work harder to understand sarcasm.

The mental gymnastics needed to perceive sarcasm includes developing a “theory of mind” to see beyond the literal meaning of the words and understand that the speaker may be thinking of something entirely different. A theory of mind allows you to realize that when your friends say “Sabhaash” when you spill the chai on other, they mean just the opposite, the jerk.

So you may get an idea why these thing happens in our day to day life and we just laugh on it pass it to others.  Now you all can say Yeah Right to me..!!  🙂

Prateek MBA(ITBM) SCIT