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Article In: Investigating Children’s Irony Comprehension: Current trends, challenges, and perspectives
Edited by Julia Fuchs-Kreiß
[Pragmatics & Cognition 33:1] 2026
► pp. 161–188

Parodic irony comprehension

The roles of pretend play and theory of mind abilities

ORCiD logo with link | University of Oslo
ORCiD logo with link | University of Oslo
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Studies find that irony comprehension emerges around the ages of 6–7, aligning with second-order theory of mind (ToM) abilities. This study follows up on previous research suggesting that children younger than this age might be to some extent sensitive to irony uttered with a parodic tone of voice. Using picture selection and eye gaze measures, 4–7-year-old children were tested on a parodic irony comprehension task. We also investigated the proposed connection between second-order ToM abilities and parodic irony comprehension. Given that parodic irony has an affinity with pretense we also explored how pretend play skills influenced comprehension. Results corroborate existing evidence that children only reliably pass the irony task by age 6, and that second-order ToM abilities contribute to irony comprehension but only in 6–7-year-olds. Pretend play also positively correlates with comprehension scores, suggesting that this aspect of cognitive and social development might contribute positively to children’s irony understanding.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Irony and tone of voice
    • 1.2Second-order theory of mind
    • 1.3Pretend play
    • 1.4Hypotheses
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Experimental design
      • 2.2.1Irony comprehension task
      • 2.2.2ToM task
      • 2.2.3Pretend play
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Pre-test material assessment
      • 3.1.1Acoustic analysis of sound clips for the irony comprehension task
      • 3.1.2Perceptual evaluation of the audio files used in the irony comprehension task
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Picture selection analysis
    • 4.2Gaze analysis
    • 4.3Second-order ToM analysis
    • 4.4Pretend play analysis
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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