Four experiments examined children's interpretations of lexical and vocal cues to speaker affect and the developmental trajectory of their interpretations of discrepancy. Findings indicate that the affective interpretations of 7- to 10-year-olds reflected a weighted- averaging strategy favoring the affect conveyed lexically. Both 4- and 7-year-olds used a weighted-averaging strategy favoring lexical content, and 10-year-olds used a strategy favoring paralanguage. (Author/KB)