Is That How You Should Talk to Her? Using Appropriate Prosody Affects Adults’, But Not Children’s, Judgments of Communicators’ Competence

Abstract

Two studies explored whether the appropriateness of a speaker’s prosodic style (i.e., pitch, volume, speech rate) affects observers’ judgments of speakers’ and listeners’ competence. Adults and school-aged children watched videos of speakers addressing a listener using prosodic styles that were either appropriate (e.g., adult-directed for an adult listener), or inappropriate (e.g., child-directed for an adult listener). Adults, but not children, awarded higher ratings in some domains of communicative competence to speakers and listeners when a speaker used appropriate prosodic styles.