Traditional nonverbal cues like pitch and pupil dilation are increasingly unreliable, especially for nuanced communication like sarcasm. This study investigates gestural cues in sarcasm perception building on prior research that identifies the mouth and eyes as crucial. Sarcasm, prevalent yet potentially difficult to detect may benefit from nonverbal cues. We hypothesized that participants would better discern speaker intent with both audio and visual, and that eyes and mouth would be primary cues in video-only conditions. Undergraduate participants viewed videos from the RISC database, with or without audio, and identified speaker intent (literal, humor, sarcasm, white lie). They then reported which gestural cues aided their perception: eyes, mouth, eyebrows, etc. Eye-tracking technology was used to validate self-reported cues. We anticipate eye tracking data will support self-reported findings.
