Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 26, 2026

Assessing Dyslexia at Six Year of Age
Published on: May 1, 2020
A Developmental Lexical Bias in the Interpretation of Discrepant Messages
Margaret Friend1, Judith Becker Bryant2
1Department of Psychology, University of South Florida and Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine.
Abstract:
Children's interpretations of lexical and vocal cues to speaker affect, independently and in combination, were examined in four studies. In Experiments 1 and 2, 7- to 11 -year-olds'judgments of lexical and paralinguistic cues were evaluated. In Experiment 3, these cues were combined to produce consistent and discrepant messages. The affective interpretations of 7- to 10-year-olds reflected a weighted-averaging strategy favoring the affect conveyed lexically. In Experiment 4, the developmental trajectory of children's interpretations of discrepancy from 4 to 10 years of age was investigated. Both 4- and 7-year-olds appeared to use a weighted-averaging strategy favoring lexical content, whereas 10-year-olds utilized a strategy favoring paralanguage.
More Related Videos
10:11Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking IPL: Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism
Published on: December 14, 2012
06:33Decomposing the Variance in Reading Comprehension to Reveal the Unique and Common Effects of Language and Decoding
Published on: October 11, 2018
Related Concept Videos
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Language and Cognition
Confirmation Biases
Correspondence Bias
Self-Discrepancy Theory
Self-Discrepancy and Its Effects