Inability to Recognize Sarcasm
“That was a sarcastic remark.” We say this regularly because we can tell when someone is using the wise-guy device of sarcasm. But if you fail to recognize it, or take it very literally and seriously, it may be a sign of atrophy in your brain. (We all miss it from time to time, of course, but if you consistently “don’t get it,” it could be a problem.)
A study by Katherine Rankin, Ph.D., of the University of California/San Francisco found that Alzheimer’s patients and those with Frontotemporal Disease were among those who could not recognize sarcasm in face-to-face encounters. In such diseases, Dr. Perry says, the brain’s posterior hippocampus is affected, which is where short-term memory is stored, and where one would sort out such things as sarcasm.