Respecting the Old and Loving the Young: Emoji-Based Sarcasm Interpretation Between Younger and Older Adults

The interpretation of sarcasm relies on many cues and constraints. In computer-mediated communication (CMC), paralinguistic cues, such as emoticons and emoji, play an important role in signaling sarcastic intention. Smiling emoji have been claimed to be a marker of sarcasm among Chinese senders. Shared knowledge between the sender and the recipient, such as age and relationship, has a substantial effect on irony or sarcasm interpretation. However, hardly any research has been done to integrate the two factors to explore their joint effect on sarcasm interpretation. The present study investigated the interaction effect of these factors on the interpretation of ambiguous statements accompanied by a smiling emoji. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the differences between younger and older adults in making judgments about ambiguous statements accompanied by a smiling emoji. The results showed that sender age and sender–receiver relationship have disparate influences on younger and older adults’ interpretation of emoji-based ambiguous statements. For younger adults, sender age and sender–receiver relationship were significantly associated with the perceived sarcasm of emoji-based ambiguous statements, whereas for older adults, sender age had a null effect on the sarcastic interpretation of emoji-based ambiguous statements, but relationship was an important cue that might impact their interpretation.