https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820922804 Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 1–16 © Experimental Psychology Society 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1747021820922804 qjep.sagepub.com Advancements in technology have seen an increase in the use of computer-mediated communication, where people interact with one another online, for example, through email and social networking services (Kiesler et al., 1984). As the majority of these interactions are text-based, people use various textual devices such as punctuation (e.g., ..., !!!), emoticons (e.g., :-), :-(, or ;-)), or emojis, to enhance the meaning of their messages and to express their thoughts and emotions (Derks et al., 2008; Thompson & Filik, 2016; Weissman & Tanner, 2018). Because previous research has suggested that the winking face emoticon is one of the most common devices to accompany ironic/sar- castic sentences (Thompson & Filik, 2016), in this paper we will focus on the wink emoticon. Specifically, we use eye-tracking during reading to investigate how this device is processed in real-time with comments that are ambigu- ous between a literal and a sarcastic interpretation, as well as examining its influence on interpretation, and the rela- tionship between reading behaviour and interpretation. We also investigate whether certain perceiver-related factors, specifically, age, personal tendency to use sarcasm, and use of the internet, social media, and emoticons, have an influence on interpretation. The comprehension of irony and sarcasm Irony can be defined as a form of non-literal language that involves someone expressing one thing when they actu- ally mean the opposite (Grice, 1975). Ironic language is used frequently in online communication, with research indicating that 7% of emails sent to friends (Whalen et al., 2009) and 73% of blog entries (Whalen et al., 2012) con- tain some form of verbal irony (with the latter study reporting an average of around two ironic utterances per entry). A common form of irony is ironic criticism or sar- casm, where people express a positive statement to con- vey a negative meaning, to target individuals and chastise them about their behaviour, for example, saying, You’re such an amazing cook!, to an individual who has burnt their dinner (Dews et al., 1995; Kreuz & Glucksberg, The role of emoticons in sarcasm comprehension in younger and older adults: Evidence from an eye-tracking experiment Hannah Elizabeth Howman and Ruth Filik Abstract We present an eye-tracking experiment examining moment-to-moment processes underlying the comprehension of emoticons. Younger (18–30) and older (65+) participants had their eye movements recorded while reading scenarios containing comments that were ambiguous between literal or sarcastic interpretations (e.g., But you’re so quick though). Comments were accompanied by wink emoticons or full stops. Results showed that participants read earlier parts of the wink scenarios faster than those with full stops, but then spent more time reading the text surrounding the emoticon. Thus, readers moved more quickly to the end of the text when there was a device that may aid interpretation but then spent more time processing the conflict between the superficially positive nature of the comment and the tone implied by the emoticon. Interestingly, the wink increased the likelihood of a sarcastic interpretation in younger adults only, suggesting that perceiver-related factors play an important role in emoticon interpretation. Keywords Emoticons; ambiguity; irony; sarcasm; eye-tracking; ageing Received: 1 March 2019; revised: 19 March 2020; accepted: 6 April 2020 School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK Corresponding author: Ruth Filik, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. Email: ruth.filik@nottingham.ac.uk 10.1177_1747021820922804 Original Article