Sarcasm and the right hemisphere

Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex posted on the cognitive challenge posed by sarcasm:

"Sarcasm is a cognitive challenge. In order to get the sarcastic sentiment, we can't simply decode the utterance, or decipher the literal meaning of the sentence. Instead, we have to understand the meaning of the words in their larger social context. For example, if it's a beautiful day outside - the sun is shining, etc - and somebody states "What a nice day!," there is no sarcasm; the sentence makes perfect sense. However, if the same statement is uttered on a rainy day, then there is a clear contradiction, which leads to an interpretation of sarcasm. (We typically exaggerate the expression of sarcastic statements, thus making it easier to pick up the verbal/social contradiction.) Psychologists refer to such utterances as an incongruent word-emotion situation."

He continues to point out the involvement of the right hemisphere in processing sarcasm. I've previously posted on this in the context of contextual processing (unintended pun) and Cook's model of topographic callosal inhibition. Read more about it in my post on the left brain right brain myth.