Inability to Detect Sarcasm & Lies May Be Early Sign of Dementia, Study Shows

By on April 17, 2011 in News 15

Groucho MarxVia ScienceDaily:

By asking a group of older adults to analyze videos of other people conversing — some talking truthfully, some insincerely — a group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco has determined which areas of the brain govern a person’s ability to detect sarcasm and lies.

Some of the adults in the group were healthy, but many of the test subjects had neurodegenerative diseases that cause certain parts of the brain to deteriorate. The UCSF team mapped their brains using magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, which showed associations between the deteriorations of particular parts of the brain and the inability to detect insincere speech.

“These patients cannot detect lies,” said UCSF neuropsychologist Katherine Rankin, PhD, a member of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and the senior author of the study. “This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier.”

The finding was presented April 14, 2011, at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Hawaii, by Rankin and her postdoctoral fellow Tal Shany-Ur, PhD. The title of their presentation was, “Divergent Neuroanatomic Correlates of Sarcasm and Lie Comprehension in Neurodegenerative Disease.”

Read More: ScienceDaily

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  • http://twitter.com/BanjoLawson H.B Llawson-Paterson

    Is this article sarcastic or ironic?

  • http://twitter.com/BanjoLawson Banjo Lawson

    Is this article sarcastic or ironic?

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    Don’t mean to be a jerk, but I wonder if this is why so many of my older (and mainly right-wing) friends pass around these crazy emails as true.

    You know the ones I’m talking about, the emails that could easily be verified through snopes but aren’t (not that snopes always gets it right) or emails that are actually humor pieces from The Onion, which they somehow have taken as a serious news item.

    I got one just the other day titled “No one was listening” which had been floating around from before the 2008 election where Obama purportedly wanted to change our National Anthem to “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, as it’s less warlike. Oh, yeah and he also wanted to disarm America to a level that would make the countries of the middle east happy.

    The admonition at the end of the “No one was listening” email, to “Save our country before it’s to late!!”[sic] makes me think that maybe it already is too late, though not for the reason its author feared.

  • http://www.ContraControl.com/ Zenc

    Don’t mean to be a jerk, but I wonder if this is why so many of my older (and mainly right-wing) friends pass around these crazy emails as true.

    You know the ones I’m talking about, the emails that could easily be verified through snopes but aren’t (not that snopes always gets it right) or emails that are actually humor pieces from The Onion, which they somehow have taken as a serious news item.

    I got one just the other day titled “No one was listening” which had been floating around from before the 2008 election where Obama purportedly wanted to change our National Anthem to “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, as it’s less warlike. Oh, yeah and he also wanted to disarm America to a level that would make the countries of the middle east happy.

    The admonition at the end of the “No one was listening” email, to “Save our country before it’s to late!!”[sic] makes me think that maybe it already is too late, though not for the reason its author feared.

  • Drinky McGee

    Malfunctioning Bullshit Detectors are responsible for most of the world’s problems. That, and Simon Cowell.

  • Drinky McGee

    Malfunctioning Bullshit Detectors are responsible for most of the world’s problems. That, and Simon Cowell.

  • Anonymous

    Oh gods, if I can’t understand and speak in sarcasm any more I’ll be unable to communicate with the world at all… I think this might be a scarier prospect than the memory loss…

  • quartz99

    Oh gods, if I can’t understand and speak in sarcasm any more I’ll be unable to communicate with the world at all… I think this might be a scarier prospect than the memory loss…

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    I just figured out the disconnect between the Left and the Right in this country. When the Right was listing its ideas for a new American future…the Left said “Yeah…right…that ought to work out juuuuust fine.” and the GOP just assumed everyone was in agreement and ran with it.

  • http://voxmagi-necessarywords.blogspot.com/ VoxMagi

    I just figured out the disconnect between the Left and the Right in this country. When the Right was listing its ideas for a new American future…the Left said “Yeah…right…that ought to work out juuuuust fine.” and the GOP just assumed everyone was in agreement and ran with it.

  • TaschNY

    Is this a bazinga?

  • TaschNY

    Is this a bazinga?

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bernard-Forand/100000738532782 Bernard Forand

    LOL This must be a difficult research, as if you are to accept the perceived facts of observations, of the research,is it a sign, that the researcher is slipping into dementia.. Curious; This implies that those with a lack of humor would be prime candidates. Get it ! No, then give them a call and volunteer to be tested….. LOL

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bernard-Forand/100000738532782 Bernard Forand

    LOL This must be a difficult research, as if you are to accept the perceived facts of observations, of the research,is it a sign, that the researcher is slipping into dementia.. Curious; This implies that those with a lack of humor would be prime candidates. Get it ! No, then give them a call and volunteer to be tested….. LOL

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bernard-Forand/100000738532782 Bernard Forand

    LOL This must be a difficult research, as if you are to accept the perceived facts of observations, of the research,is it a sign, that the researcher is slipping into dementia.. Curious; This implies that those with a lack of humor would be prime candidates. Get it ! No, then give them a call and volunteer to be tested….. LOL