Irony plays an important role in social communication, but its perceived politeness and appropriateness can vary across linguistic backgrounds. This study investigated how first-language (L1) English speakers and advanced second-language (L2) English speakers (Chinese L1) evaluate ironic (sarcastic, teasing) versus literal statements in audio-visual conversations. Participants watched videos and rated them on politeness, appropriateness, and their own likelihood of using them. Stimuli differed by communicative intent (positive vs. negative) and delivery style (literal vs. ironic). Both groups judged literal and positive statements as more polite and appropriate than ironic and negative ones. However, L1 and L2 speakers differed in how willing they were to use irony themselves, with L1 speakers preferring literal over ironic remarks more strongly than L2 speakers. Sarcastic remarks were judged less polite than literal negative statements, contrary to predictions of the Tinge Hypothesis that irony softens criticism. Our findings show that paralinguistic cues shape irony evaluation and that L2 speakers interpret irony similarly to L1 speakers but are more cautious about using it themselves. These results advance the understanding of intercultural pragmatics and L2 sociopragmatic development.

Abstract When people share a language but differ in proficiency, higher proficiency speakers often adjust their speech for lower proficiency listeners. They might speak slower, simplify sentence structures, or use exaggerated articulation to support understanding and manage social dynamics. Speech accommodation across proficiencies (LX accommodation) can improve comprehension when it meets the needs of the lower proficiency speaker. However, it is not yet clear how a speaker’s accommodation behavior relates to their attitudes about accommodation, or how empathy, anxiety, and language experience influence accommodation attitudes. We developed the Communication Accommodation Behavior Scale (CABS) to assess two dimensions of this relationship: positive, prosocial intent (i.e. “Facilitative Accommodation”) and negative feelings, including avoidance (i.e. “Resistant Accommodation”). A representative sample of English-speaking (L1) participants (n = 525) completed the eight-item CABS, surveys of empathy and anxiety, and a demographic and language experience questionnaire. A factor analysis revealed a two-factor CABS structure, supporting its utility for research purposes. Age, experience abroad, and interpersonal empathy influenced CABS scores, revealing complex individual differences in accommodation strategies linked to experience and stable personality traits.

Effective communication is critical for equitable healthcare delivery. In situations where there is language discordance between patients and providers, with one person speaking a shared language more proficiently, communication challenges may exacerbate disparities, particularly for racially or ethnically minoritized patients. Even when patients and providers are both fluent enough in English to not need interpretation, communication challenges intensify when patients are required to use their second language (L2) to interact with a native English (L1) speaking healthcare provider. Communication accommodation encompasses speech adjustments used to mitigate these barriers. Because communication accommodation strategies are not explicitly taught in healthcare training, it is unknown how healthcare providers adjust and the role a patient’s English proficiency plays in guiding provider language choices. This experimental study tested how L1 physician assistant students modify their communication during intake interviews with Latine L2 avatar patients of varying English proficiency, using the mixed-reality simulation platform Mursion. Data from 41 physician assistant students in 2023–2024 were analyzed for acoustic (i.e., speech rate, pitch modulation) and lexical adjustments (i.e., word frequency, contextual diversity). Results revealed significant accommodations: students reduced their speech rate, narrowed their pitch range, and used higher-frequency vocabulary when interacting with lower-proficiency L2 avatars. The results demonstrate that communication accommodation occurs and could be a potential mechanism for the widening or narrowing of healthcare disparities in patient outcomes. Future work should consider identifying which accommodations improve patients’ comprehension of medical advice and their relationships with healthcare providers.

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE:Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that requires increasing care over time. Care partners, often family members, play a critical role in supporting individuals with PD, yet their experiences are understudied. Existing literature focuses largely on care partner burden and quality of life, often neglecting the nuanced, evolving nature of caregiving and role adaptation. Occupational therapy plays a vital role in supporting care partners, yet further research is needed to understand their lived experiences through an evidence-based lens. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:This study explores how care partners of people with PD experience and develop resilience over time, with an emphasis on emotional, relational, and occupational adaptation. METHODS:Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, 12 care partners participated in semi-structured interviews. Descriptive standardized measures (Q-LES-Q and ZBI) were also collected to contextualize participant well-being and caregiving burden without shaping analysis. Data were analyzed using the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method of phenomenological analysis, supported by researcher reflexivity and triangulation to ensure rigor. KEY THEMES OR FINDINGS:Three primary themes emerged: (1) The Power of Adaptive Resilience, reflecting internal growth and mindset shifts; (2) The Quiet Struggle, highlighting grief, guilt, and emotional isolation; and (3) Through the Gray, capturing the ambiguity and evolving nature of caregiving. Participants described caregiving as a marathon marked by emotional negotiation and the pursuit of meaning. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS:Care partners demonstrated adaptive resilience not as passive endurance, but as an active process of transformation. Centering care partner voices can inform more holistic, family-centered care models.

Introduction: Social inferential processes, including theory of mind, pragmatics (comprising irony and sarcasm), deception, and social judgments, enable individuals to interpret intentions, beliefs, and socially normative behaviors. Traditional measures using vignettes or static images often lack ecological validity, whereas video-based tasks provide a more naturalistic approach. This scoping review maps video-based measures of social inference in adults over the past 30 years. Methods: A systematic search in PsycInfo, PubMed, and SocIndex identified 5057 records, with 421 meeting inclusion criteria. We extracted details on test and stimuli characteristics, populations studies, and video features. Results: A total of 189 tests were identified: 33% assessed theory of mind, 25% social judgment, 20% deception, 12% irony/sarcasm, and 7% pragmatics. Most were in English or European languages, with videos typically featuring speaking actors (77%) and over half showing real interactions. Commonly used tests included the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition, Awareness of Social Inference Test, Interpersonal Perception Task, and EmpaToM. Thirteen stimuli banks were identified, mainly covering theory of mind, deception, and social judgment, with limited linguistic diversity. Psychiatric populations, particularly schizophrenia, were most studied, while neurodegenerative disorders were underrepresented. Conclusion: The breadth of tools demonstrates strong innovation in task design and offers a practical resource for researchers and clinicians. However, validation remains limited, stimuli banks are scarce, and key populations such as older adults and patients with neurodegenerative disorders are underrepresented. Future work should focus on strengthening existing tools, expanding accessibility, and linking assessments more closely to clinical and real-world social functioning.

Autistic people often experience challenges in interpreting nonliteral language, such as sarcasm, teasing, and prosocial lies, which rely on speaker-intention discriminations. Prior research on speaker-intention discriminations in autism has often employed static stimuli that lack ecological validity, did not capture multimodal communication cues, and primarily focused on children. The present study examined how autistic and non-autistic adults infer speaker intentions and emotional valence in dynamic, naturalistic videos. Participants (N = 73) viewed 50 brief video vignettes from the Relational Inference in Social Communication database, depicting literal, sarcastic, teasing, or prosocial lie scenarios. After each video, they identified the speaker’s communicative intent and rated the emotional response of the addressee. Participants also completed two measures of autistic characteristics (Autism Spectrum Quotient; Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory). Autistic participants showed lower speaker-intention discrimination than non-autistic participants, whereas valence ratings differed modestly by group but followed broadly similar patterns across intentions. Autistic traits predicted lower speaker-intention discrimination in non-autistic adults but were unrelated (Comprehensive Autistic Trait Inventory) or positively associated (Autism Quotient) in autistic adults. These findings highlight both shared and differing aspects of speaker-intention discriminations and happiness rating across groups and support the value of combining categorical and trait-based approaches to better understand individual differences in social communication.

Background: Traditional exercise programs are beneficial in managing Parkinson’s disease (PD). Little research exists on interdisciplinary, functional exercise programs designed and implemented by licensed therapists. Method: Our case series presents the development, implementation, and results of an interdisciplinary functional exercise program for individuals with PD and the effects this program had on daily functioning and quality of life. Participants were recruited via flyers, email, and phone communication, and consented to data collection for our objectives. Participants attended two sessions per week for 8 weeks. Sessions addressed fine and gross motor skills, dexterity, cognition, functional strength, gait, balance, and posture. Outcome measures were chosen before the implementation of pre-assessments, including PD-specific evaluations of cognition, mobility, gait, balance, coordination, strength, dexterity, and quality of life. Results: Seven participants (4 M, 3 F) with PD completed pre-assessment, intervention, and post-assessment. As hypothesized, they demonstrated improvement across multiple outcomes, mostly in mobility metrics. Discussion: Findings from this case series suggest that an interdisciplinary, functional exercise program integrating occupational and physical therapy can meaningfully improve mobility, reduce bodily discomfort, and positively influence aspects of quality of life for individuals with PD. The program’s emphasis on functional tasks and interdisciplinary collaboration highlights the value of tailoring interventions to both motor and non-motor challenges. These results support further investigation of interdisciplinary exercise approaches as a complementary component of traditional care for this population.

In daily interactions, individuals use irony and prosocial lies for various reasons, for example, to be humorous, to criticize, or to be polite. While some studies have examined individual differences in perceiving the politeness of such language, research using naturalistic, context-rich materials is lacking. To address this gap, we utilized short videos to assess politeness perception in literal, ironic, and prosocial lie scenarios while also exploring differences based on age, gender, and geographical location. Our sample included 288 participants from the United States and the United Kingdom. We focused on five different types of language: literal positive, blunt, sarcastic, teasing, and prosocial lies. Participants rated the politeness of these statements and completed surveys on communication preferences (Self-Reported Sarcasm Questionnaire and Conversational Indirectness Scale Questionnaire). While the demographic groups showed similarities, individual factors also shaped politeness perception. Older adults perceived teasing as less polite than middle-aged and younger adults, and male participants rated blunt and sarcastic statements as more polite. Geographical variations were found for prosocial lies, with U.K. participants rating them more polite than their U.S. counterparts. These findings underscore the importance of considering context-rich materials and individual factors in understanding the social functions of irony and prosocial lies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex condition, and individuals living in rural areas often face challenges accessing the specialized care they require. To better understand the specific healthcare needs of individuals with PD in Eastern North Carolina (ENC), the present study investigated three key areas: access to a multidisciplinary care team, access to PD-specific resources, and access to resources for establishing telemedicine services. Participants were recruited through email invitations to Parkinson's Foundation members and the distribution of postcards in the region, and 106 individuals with PD in ENC completed the online survey. Only 28.3% of respondents reported access to an interdisciplinary care team, with approximately 50% stating that their healthcare provider had not informed them of the availability of such a team. Nevertheless, the quality of care received was generally perceived as high, and 41.5% of participants were part of a PD support group. Approximately half of the respondents expressed a willingness to have telemedicine appointments with a movement disorder specialist. These findings offer valuable insights for healthcare providers and policymakers in rural areas to better understand the needs of people with PD. Several strategies, including community building and increased access to telemedicine, are recommended to address these needs.

Purpose: This study examined the race identification of Southern American English speakers from two geographically distant regions in North Carolina. The purpose of this work is to explore how talkers' self-identified race, talker dialect region, and acoustic speech variables contribute to listener categorization of talker races. Method: Two groups of listeners heard a series of /h/-vowel-/d/ (/hVd/) words produced by Black and White talkers from East and West North Carolina, respectively. Results: Both Southern (North Carolina) and Midland (Indiana) listeners accurately categorized the race of all speakers with greater-than-chance accuracy; however, Western North Carolina Black talkers were categorized with the lowest accuracy, just above chance. Conclusions: The results suggest that similarities in the speech production patterns of West North Carolina Black and White talkers affect the racial categorization of Black, but not White talkers. The results are discussed with respect to the acoustic spectral features of the voices present in the sample population.

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened healthcare access and increased mental health concerns for individuals with Parkinson's Disease (PD). We surveyed PD patients in rural Eastern North Carolina to understand the pandemic's impact on these individuals. Our study assessed self-reported stress, anxiety, and depression, and used the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 to measure anxiety and depression symptoms. Results showed mild increases in stress, anxiety, and exacerbation of PD symptoms, highlighting the need for tailored interventions to support vulnerable populations during global crises. The study emphasizes the need to develop resources for ongoing care beyond the pandemic for individuals with chronic diseases like PD.

BACKGROUND:Proficient speakers of a language often accommodate less proficient speakers during conversation to facilitate comprehension, but information about factors such as personality and language experience that may shape how speakers perceive accommodation is limited.PURPOSE:We developed an online questionnaire to clarify the use of speech accommodation in relation to individual differences in anxiety, personality, and English proficiency.METHOD:Using Qualtrics Panels for recruitment, we surveyed a representative sample of second-language (L2) English speakers (n = 201) and first-language (L1) English speakers (n = 192) across the United States. We report descriptive results in addition to correlations and a factor analysis to assess the perception of accommodation in L2 and L1 speakers.RESULTS:Only a third of L2 participants reported that L1 speakers change their speech when talking to them, and more than half are frustrated when L1 speakers do not accommodate them. Indeed, a majority of our L1 participants reported that they do not change their speech when talking to L2 speakers. For both groups, measures of anxiety, personality, and L2 proficiency modify results, providing novel evidence on factors that influence L2 accommodation.CONCLUSIONS:Results suggest that L1 speakers accommodate L2 speakers less frequently than previously reported. The data are discussed under communication accommodation theory.

Individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) often show breakdown in the production and interpretation of aspects of social communication. However, there is no current method of assessment for evaluating social communication dysfunction in individuals with PD. The aim of this study was to develop a self-report questionnaire for individuals with PD to identify their social communication skills, and further recognize the impact of PD on social communication. Fifty-one individuals with Parkinson's disease answered 28 survey questions. These questions pertained to emotional expression and perception, social communication, sarcasm/humor, and pragmatic skills. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis were conducted to identify items loading onto the factors and to check the internal consistency of the items. Individuals with PD reported changes in emotional expression and perception, social communication, sarcasm and humor, and pragmatic skill domains post-PD diagnosis. No correlations were found between age or time since diagnosis and emotional expression, social communication, sarcasm, and humor. This study provides self-reported evidence that individuals with PD experience social communication challenges. Future research should further quantify these challenges, study their impact on daily communicative functioning, and use the results to develop social communication interventions that improve the quality of life for persons with PD.

Second language (L2) speech accommodation involves adjusting one’s speech when communicating with non-native speakers of a language. This can include speaking more slowly and clearly, exaggerating vowels, and using simpler language. While L2 speech accommodation can be an important tool for language teachers to help students learn, inappropriate accommodation can hinder the learning process. Previous studies on L2 speech accommodation have mainly relied on observational data obtained in classroom settings, limiting our knowledge about the natural use of accommodation during interactions. In this study, we designed an experiment to investigate L2 accommodation in a more natural, ecologically valid setting. We analyzed conversational sequences between L1 English speakers and L2 speakers of English while they played a cooperative computer game. Our results show that L1 speakers adjust their speech when talking to L2 speakers. Specifically, they tend to choose words of higher frequency and great contextual diversity, and they tend to speak louder compared to L1 speakers. Additionally, the relationship between speech accommodation and anxiety reveals affective connections between participants. These findings indicate that teaching pedagogy that instructs speech accommodation should be rooted in the communicative needs of the students in the classroom. However, more research is needed to increase awareness of natural L2 speech accommodation and to develop appropriate pedagogic guidelines.

Understanding insincere language (sarcasm and teasing) is a fundamental part of communication and crucial for maintaining social relationships. This can be a challenging task for cochlear implant (CIs) users who receive degraded suprasegmental information important for perceiving a speaker’s attitude. We measured the perception of speaker sincerity (literal positive, literal negative, sarcasm, and teasing) in 16 adults with CIs using an established video inventory. Participants were presented with audio-only and audio-visual social interactions between two people with and without supporting verbal context. They were instructed to describe the content of the conversation and answer whether the speakers meant what they said. Results showed that subjects could not always identify speaker sincerity, even when the content of the conversation was perfectly understood. This deficit was greater for perceiving insincere relative to sincere utterances. Performance improved when additional visual cues or verbal context cues were provided. Subjects who were better at perceiving the content of the interactions in the audio-only condition benefited more from having additional visual cues for judging the speaker’s sincerity, suggesting that the two modalities compete for cognitive recourses. Perception of content also did not correlate with perception of speaker sincerity, suggesting that what was said vs. how it was said were perceived using unrelated segmental versus suprasegmental cues. Our results further showed that subjects who had access to lower-order resolved harmonic information provided by hearing aids in the contralateral ear identified speaker sincerity better than those who used implants alone. These results suggest that measuring speech recognition alone in CI users does not fully describe the outcome. Our findings stress the importance of measuring social communication functions in people with CIs.

The current study explored the judgment of communicative appropriateness while processing a dialogue between two individuals. All stimuli were presented as audio-visual as well as audio-only vignettes and 24 young adults reported their social impression (appropriateness) of literal, blunt, sarcastic, and teasing statements. On average, teasing statements were rated as more appropriate when processing audio-visual statements compared to the audio-only version of a stimuli, while sarcastic statements were judged as less appropriate with additional visual information. These results indicate a rejection of the Tinge Hypothesis for audio-visual vignettes while confirming it for the reduced, audio-only counterparts. We also analyzed time-frequency EEG data of four frequency bands that have been related to language processing: alpha, beta, theta and low gamma. We found desynchronization in the alpha band literal versus nonliteral items, confirming the assumption that the alpha band reflects stimulus complexity. The analysis also revealed a power increase in the theta, beta and low gamma band, especially when comparing blunt and nonliteral statements in the audio-only condition. The time-frequency results corroborate the prominent role of the alpha and theta bands in language processing and offer new insights into the neural correlates of communicative appropriateness and social aspects of speech perception.

When we hear an emotional voice, does this alter how the brain perceives and evaluates a subsequent face? Here, we tested this question by comparing event-related potentials evoked by angry, sad, and happy faces following vocal expressions which varied in form (speech-embedded emotions, non-linguistic vocalizations) and emotional relationship (congruent, incongruent). Participants judged whether face targets were true exemplars of emotion (facial affect decision). Prototypicality decisions were more accurate and faster for congruent vs. incongruent faces and for targets that displayed happiness. Principal component analysis identified vocal context effects on faces in three distinct temporal factors: a posterior P200 (150-250 ms), associated with evaluating face typicality; a slow frontal negativity (200-750 ms) evoked by angry faces, reflecting enhanced attention to threatening targets; and the Late Positive Potential (LPP, 450-1000 ms), reflecting sustained contextual evaluation of intrinsic face meaning (with independent LPP responses in posterior and prefrontal cortex). Incongruent faces and faces primed by speech (compared to vocalizations) tended to increase demands on face perception at stages of structure-building (P200) and meaning integration (posterior LPP). The frontal LPP spatially overlapped with the earlier frontal negativity response; these components were functionally linked to expectancy-based processes directed towards the incoming face, governed by the form of a preceding vocal expression (especially for anger). Our results showcase differences in how vocalizations and speech-embedded emotion expressions modulate cortical operations for predicting (prefrontal) versus integrating (posterior) face meaning in light of contextual details.

Nonliteral language represents a complex form of communication that can be interpreted in numerous different ways. Our study explored how individual differences in personality and communication styles affect the evaluation of literal and nonliteral language in the context of assumptions made by the Tinge Hypothesis (Dews & Winner, 1995). Participants watched videos of social interactions focusing on positive, negative, sarcastic, and jocular statements. They evaluated speaker intentions and social impressions and completed several personality and communication style questionnaires. Individual differences in empathy, defense style, and sarcasm use correlated with the accuracy of identifying speaker intent. Additionally, positive statements were rated as friendlier when compared to jocular statements, thereby supporting the Tinge Hypothesis. However, literal negative statements were rated as more friendly than sarcastic statements, which is inconsistent with the Tinge Hypothesis. The current results provide novel evidence for the Tinge Hypothesis using multimodal, dynamic stimuli and highlight the role of the individual personality of the recipient in evaluating sarcasm and jocularity.