The graded salience hypothesis. A meaning of a word or an expression is considered salient if it can be retrieved directly from the lexicon. However, while the ironically biased context should activate the ironic meaning as well, the literally biased context should activate only the literal meaning. The target words were related to either the ironic or the literal meaning of the target sentence, so that activation of the different meanings could be assessed.
Findings support the graded salience hypothesis.
They show that, contrary to current beliefs, irony interpretation involves processing the literal meaning. They further reveal that ironic and literal interpretations do not involve equivalent processes.