Social and paralinguistic cues to sarcasm

Abstract Speakers signal sarcastic intent in a variety of ways, including the words they use and the tone of voice they employ. In this paper, we investigate whether facial cues are also used to indicate sarcastic intent. Participants were audio- and videotaped as they engaged in tasks designed to elicit sarcasm. In order to assess how facial cues differed in terms of common ground, participant pairs were divided into pairs of friends and strangers. We provide evidence that sarcasm is also signaled by a variety of facial cues, such as movement of the head, eyes, and mouth, and these cues are more commonly employed by friends than by strangers.