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.

In communicative situations, preschoolers use shared knowledge, or "common ground," to guide their interpretation of a speaker's referential intent. Using eye-tracking measures, this study investigated the time course of 4-year-olds' (n = 95) use of two different speakers' perspectives and assessed how individual differences in this ability related to individual differences in executive function and representational skills. Gaze measures indicated partner-specific common ground guided children's interpretation from the earliest moments of language processing. Nonegocentric online processing was positively correlated with performance on a Level 2 visual perspective-taking task. These results demonstrate that preschoolers readily use the perspectives of multiple partners to guide language comprehension and that more advanced representational skills are associated with the rapid integration of common ground information. Electronic mail may be sent to susan.graham@ucalgary.ca.

We examined the role of distinct labels on infants’ inductive inferences. Thirty-six 15-month-old infants were presented with target objects that possessed a non-obvious property, followed by test objects that varied in shape similarity relative to the target. Infants were tested in one of two groups, a Same Label group in which target and test objects were labeled with the same noun, and a Distinct Label group in which target and test objects were labeled with different nouns. When target and test objects were labeled with the same count noun, infants generalized the non-obvious property to both test objects, regardless of similarity to the target. In contrast, labeling the target and test objects with different count nouns attenuated infants’ generalization of the non-obvious property to both high and low-similarity test objects. Our results suggest that by 15 months, infants recognize that object labels provide information about underlying object kind and appreciate that distinct labels are used to designate members of different categories.

The present study investigated whether naming would facilitate infants’ transfer of information from picture books to the real world. Eighteen- and 21-month-olds learned a novel label for a novel object depicted in a picture book. Infants then saw a second picture book in which an adult demonstrated how to elicit the object’s non-obvious property. Accompanying narration described the pictures using the object’s newly learnt label. Infants were subsequently tested with the real-world object depicted in the book, as well as a different-color exemplar. Infants’ performance on the test trials was compared with that of infants in a no label condition. When presented with the exact object depicted in the picture book, 21-month-olds were significantly more likely to attempt to elicit the object’s non-obvious property than were 18-month-olds. Learning the object’s label before learning about the object’s hidden property did not improve 18-month-olds’ performance. At 21-months, the number of infants in the label condition who attempted to elicit the real-world object’s non-obvious property was greater than would be predicted by chance, but the number of infants in the no label condition was not. Neither age group nor label condition predicted test performance for the different-color exemplar. The findings are discussed in relation to infants’ learning and transfer from picture books.

Successful communication often requires a listener to reason about a speaker's perspective to make inferences about communicative intent. Although children can use perspective reasoning to influence their interpretation of spoken utterances, when and how children integrate perspective reasoning with language comprehension remain unclear. These questions are central to theoretical debates in language processing and have led to competing accounts of communicative perspective taking: early versus late integration. In this article, we examine how developmental evidence addresses the predictions of each account. Specifically, we review evidence to determine whether children can rapidly integrate perspective inferences when processing spoken language while central abilities (i.e., executive function and theory of mind) are still emerging.