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That's not what you said earlier: preschoolers expect partners to be referentially consistent*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2013

SUSAN A. GRAHAM ,
JULIE SEDIVY  and
MELANIE KHU
SUSAN A. GRAHAM*
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
JULIE SEDIVY
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
MELANIE KHU
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
*
Address for correspondence: S. Graham, Dept. of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4Canada. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In a conversation, adults expect speakers to be consistent in their use of a particular expression. We examine whether four-year-olds expect speakers to use consistent referential descriptions and whether these expectations are partner-specific. Using an eye-tracking paradigm, we presented four-year-olds with arrays of objects on a screen. During training, Experimenter 1 (E1) used a target expression to identify one object (i.e. “the spotted dog” to identify a dog that is both spotted and fluffy). Following training, either E1 or a new conversational partner (E2) presented children with test trials. Here, the target objects were referred to using either the original expression (e.g. “the spotted dog”) or a new expression (e.g. “the fluffy dog”). Eye-movements indicated that preschoolers were quicker to identify the target referent when the original expression was used by the same speaker. This suggests that four-year-olds, like adults, expect communicative partners to adhere to referential pacts.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 34 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported by funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation and from the Canada Research Chairs program and by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to SG. We thank the parents and children who participated as well as Mekale Kibreab, Vanessa Schell, Monica Hernandez, Charissa Ho, and Bretton Lang for their assistance.

References

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