Two‐year‐olds use adults' but not peers' points

Abstract

In the current study, 24- to 27-month-old children (N = 37) used pointing gestures in a cooperative object choice task with either peer or adult partners. When indicating the location of a hidden toy, children pointed equally accurately for adult and peer partners but more often for adult partners. When choosing from one of three hiding places, children used adults' pointing to find a hidden toy significantly more often than they used peers'. In interaction with peers, children's choice behavior was at chance level. These results suggest that toddlers ascribe informative value to adults' but not peers' pointing gestures, and highlight the role of children's social expectations in their communicative development.

Young children’s developing ability to integrate gestural and emotional cues

“…This response seems to be less pronounced in younger children, as for example two-year-olds differentiate between points from an adult compared to points from a peer (Kachel, Moore & Tomasello, 2018). However, at four years of age, children are able to avoid following pointing gestures in an object-choice-task when an experimenter explicitly states that she is going to point where the target item is not hidden (Palmquist, Kondrad & Norris, 2018).…”

Questions Can Answer Questions About Mechanisms of Preschoolers’ Selective Word Learning

“…It is uncommon that adults request object labels from toddlers. Because toddlers possess some understanding that adults are typically more competent sources of information than children (Kachel, Moore, & Tomasello, 2018), it is possible that 18‐month‐olds interpreted labelers’ questions as pragmatically incongruous or violating social conventions (e.g., Diesendruck & Shemer, 2006; see also Diesendruck, 2012, for a review on toddlers’ understanding of conventionality). For this reason, toddlers may have either distrusted both labelers or were confused by the their use of questions, which may have led to weaker encoding of novel information in both conditions.…”

Toddlers Prefer Adults as Informants: 2‐ and 3‐Year‐Olds’ Use of and Attention to Pointing Gestures From Peer and Adult Partners

“…They also follow a peer’s point to objects in their immediate environment (Franco et al, 2009) and respond appropriately to peers’ requests for objects expressed in pointing gestures and grasping movements (Hay, Castle, Davies, Demetriou, & Stimson, 1999; Hepach, Kante, & Tomasello, 2016). Infants and toddlers have been shown to point in order to share attention and provide information both with adults (Liszkowski, 2005; Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano, & Tomasello, 2006; Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2008) and peers (Franco et al, 2009; Kachel, Moore, & Tomasello, 2018). However, they engage in lower levels of pointing with peer partners (Franco et al, 2009; Kachel et al, 2018; Ninio, 2016).…”

“…Infants and toddlers have been shown to point in order to share attention and provide information both with adults (Liszkowski, 2005; Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano, & Tomasello, 2006; Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2008) and peers (Franco et al, 2009; Kachel, Moore, & Tomasello, 2018). However, they engage in lower levels of pointing with peer partners (Franco et al, 2009; Kachel et al, 2018; Ninio, 2016). Authors discuss these findings in the light of pragmatic reasons: peers are less likely to reply appropriately to the intentions underlying communicative acts, and are poor sources of information (Ninio, 2016).…”

“…In order to investigate the development of children’s preference for peer and adult partners in the third year, the comprehension of informative pointing gestures makes a very promising test case as children are well able to produce and comprehend pointing gestures at the end of the second year. However, Kachel et al (2018) found that in a cooperative object‐choice task with either peer or adult partners, 2‐year‐olds are significantly less likely to follow pointing gestures produced by peers. As a group, children merely performed at chance when using peers’ points to find a hidden toy, even though they had clearly attended the ostensively produced and unambiguous pointing gestures (Kachel et al, 2018).…”