Thursday, June 26, 2008

Right brain, left brain....

Dunno if you saw this: http://tinyurl.com/5eobxu It's a NYTimes article, and may require a free login.

It's an article on medical research looking at the specific portions of the brain involved in wit, puns, general humor, and specifically sarcasm. Turns out the same part of the brain that helps interpret visual context is also used to discern social context--- such as a tone or body language that conveys that the words being spoken are meant only sarcastically and not literally.

People with damage in that area can't tell the different between someone agreeing for real, saying "sure" and someone not really agreeing with them at all and saying "suuuuuuure."

I've always thought of myself as a left-brain kind of guy, so I welcome anything that suggests that my right brain isn't entirely atrophied. 8-)

(Or did I mean that only sarcastically?)

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