The Illusory Transparency of Intention: Does June Understand What Mark Means Because He Means It?

Keysar (1994) reported a perplexing phenomenon: Readers treated communicative intentions as transparent. When a protagonist experienced a negative event and left a sarcastic message, readers thought the addressee would perceive sarcasm more than when the event was positive and the same message sincere. This occurred even when the addressee did not know the protagonist's attitude. Gerrig, Ohaeri, and Brennan (this issue) argue that this phenomenon is methodologically and theoretically flawed. Here I argue that their criticism is unfounded. I explain how the design firmly supports the phenomenon and the theoretical challenges that the phenomenon poses. As I argued before, the phenomenon can be explained by the standard view and by a simpler theory. The challenge is to discover which theory correctly accounts for the phenomenon and more adequately describes language use. I conclude that such nontrivial phenomena should not be shunned but welcomed as useful vehicles for theory evaluation.