Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41020134›Full record

ReviewFrontiers in psychology2025

The importance of intonation for children's understanding of verbal irony.

Jordanna Smith, Melanie Glenwright

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Jordanna SmithDepartment of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
Melanie GlenwrightDepartment of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Verbal irony refers to any utterance in which the speaker's words mean something different from their intended meaning (e.g., "You're really on top of things" said to a disorganized person). For children who are just learning to recognize verbal irony, a crucial cue to the ironist's intended meaning is their intonation. In this narrative review, we describe research methods for examining how intonation influences children's understanding of verbal irony and the task demands researchers need to consider when designing these studies. Next, we examine how children weigh different cues to verbal irony as they grow older, and we identify cross-linguistic factors that can impact children's use of intonation for irony comprehension. We offer suggestions for planning future studies on this topic by stressing the importance of reducing task demands, acoustically analyzing directional frequency changes, examining children's intonation consideration in languages other than English, and comparing across tonal and non-tonal languages.

Indexed as

cognitivecross-linguisticlinguisticprosodysarcasmtask demands

Identifiers

PMID41020134
PMCPMC12460397

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.