Two experiments investigated the information conveyed by intonation from speaker to listener. A multiple-choice test was devised to test the ability of 48 adults to recognize and label intonation when it was separated from all other meaning. Nine intonation contours whose labels were most agreed upon by adults were each matched with two English sentences (one with appropriate and one with inappropriate intonation and semantic content) to make a matching-test for children. The matching-test was tape-recorded and given to children in the first, third, and fifth grades (32 subjects in each grade). The first-grade children matched the intonations with significantly greater agreement than chance; but they agreed upon significantly fewer sentences than either the third or fifth graders. Some intonation contours were matched with significantly greater frequency than others. The performance of the girls was better than that of the boys on an impatient question and a simple command which indicates that there was a significant interaction between sex and intonation.
