Inability to detect sarcasm and lies may be early indicator of dementia.

Scientists are saying that the inability to detect sarcasm and lies is an early indicator of dementia.

Luckily for us on the internet, we have the to indicate sarcasm (although, I still think we need [sarcasm] tags added to the BB codes) and can always use Snopes.com to determine if something is the truth or not.

Inability to Detect Sarcasm May Herald Dementia

People in the early stages of dementia may not be able to tell the truth from lies and sarcasm from sincerity, a new study finds.

"If somebody has strange behavior and they stop understanding things like sarcasm and lies, they should see a specialist who can make sure this is not the start of one of these diseases," study researcher Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a statement.

Rankin and her colleagues asked about 175 people, more than half of whom had a neurodegenerative disorder like dementia, to watch videos of people talking. The videotaped people would sometimes drop in a lie or use sarcasm, which they signaled with body language and verbal cues. After watching the videos, the participants answered yes and no questions about what they'd seen.

Healthy older participants did fine at distinguishing the truth from lies. But older adults with dementia affecting their frontal lobes — the seat of judgment and self-control in the brain — had a hard time telling the difference between sarcasm, lies and truth. People with frontotemporal dementia, which strikes the frontal lobes, had a particularly hard time, while those with Alzheimer's disease did somewhat better.

Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the researchers found that the inability to detect sarcasm and lies matched up with the amount of damage in the parts of the frontal lobe responsible for that judgment. Sudden gullibility should be recognized as another warning sign of dementia, Rankin said.

Live Science


This sounds like the recipe for creating the perfect voters. It makes you wonder if adding fluoride to our water and all those creepy additives to our foods isn't intended to destroy our brains ability to detect the lies told to us by our politicians so we can all go along with the program like good little sheep.

This would also explain why politicians tend to cater to the elderly so much; they are hoping that all of the garbage they have fed them for all those years has made them excessively gullible and more prone to falling for all of their lies.

Judging by the amount of people who still fall for the two party fallacy, their plan seem to be working.

good info and post op....i read this the other day and thought about putting it up and then forgot about it...at least someone got it up tho...great times we live in...great times!

Good find! Inability to detect sarcasm or get jokes is also a hallmark of an autism disorder, usually Asperger's Syndrome.

Frontal lobe damage to the brain will cause volitile personality changes, such as angry outbursts and zero impulse control.

So, basically, if you don't get my posts, you've got dementia!

For those of you that didn't get the above statement, [/sarcasm]

Originally posted by notsofunnyguy
So, basically, if you don't get my posts, you've got dementia!

For those of you that didn't get the above statement, [/sarcasm]

Its either that or your screen name is very accurate.

Originally posted by Rockerchic4God
Good find! Inability to detect sarcasm or get jokes is also a hallmark of an autism disorder, usually Asperger's Syndrome.

Frontal lobe damage to the brain will cause volitile personality changes, such as angry outbursts and zero impulse control.

Thats odd becouse some well known comics have degrees of Asperger"s.

What would we say then of folks that are very good at satire? Political cartoonists, writers, actors.