A New Look at Young Children’s Referential Informativeness

Abstract

In this article, I review experimental evidence for the dependence of 2- to 5-year-olds’ linguistic referential informativeness on cues to common ground (CG) and propose a process model. Cues to CG provide evidence for CG, that is, for the shared knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of interlocutors. The presence of cues to CG (e.g., unimpeded listener line of regard or prior mention) is shown to be associated with less informative reference (e.g., pronouns). In contrast, the absence of cues to CG (e.g., impeded listener line of regard or new mention) is shown to be associated with more informative reference (e.g., nouns). Informativeness is sensitive to linguistic before nonlinguistic cues to CG (i.e., 2.0 vs. 2.5 years old, respectively). Reference is cast as a process of active inference, a formulation of Bayesian belief-guided control in biological systems. Child speakers are hierarchical generative models that, characteristically, expect sensory evidence for the evolved, prior Bayesian belief that interlocutor mental states are aligned (i.e., that CG exists). Referential control emerges as an embodied tool to gather evidence for this prior belief. Bottom-up cues to CG elicited by action drive updates to beliefs about CG. In turn, beliefs about CG guide efficient referential control.

Thought and language: Effects of group‐mindedness on young children's interpretation of exclusive we

“…This developmental hypothesis gains initial credence from prior research that suggests that 2-year-olds can appropriately comprehend (Bohn et al, 2020;Girouard et al, 1997) and produce (reviewed in Vasil, 2023) a range of personal pronouns (i.e., words like I, me, you, etc.). Moreover, the ability to coordinate two and three visual perspectives precedes 2-year-olds' acquisition of singular first-and second-person pronouns (e.g., I and you, respectively) and singular third-person pronouns (e.g., he), respectively (Ricard et al, 1999).…”

“…However, children's interpretation of we may be sensitive to other nonlinguistic cues (e.g., perceptual similarity). Linguistic cues likely play a role, too, such as prior discourse about what “we” are doing (Vasil, 2023). Future research might investigate effects of other nonlinguistic and linguistic cues on the development of interpretation of we .…”

“…One experimenter (E) ran 58 and another E 6 participants. Although children produce personal pronouns appropriately (Vasil, 2023), participants rarely produced we (Figure S1). Thus, production is ignored in this article.…”

“…Language functions to align partners' attention, chiefly through the use of referring expressions . Referring expressions are appropriately produced by speakers as young as 2 years old to invite joint attention towards intended referents (Vasil, 2023). In turn, listeners as young as 1 year old can appropriately interpret referring expressions (Liszkowski, 2018).…”

Thought and language: association of groupmindedness with young English-speaking children’s production of pronouns

“…Nevertheless, children use pronouns appropriately from around 2 years old (Girouard et al, 1997). Indeed, a large body of literature speaks to 2-year-olds’ ability to appropriately produce (reviewed in Vasil, 2022) or comprehend personal (e.g. Bohn et al, 2020), possessive (e.g.…”