Contextual factors affect absent reference comprehension in 14-month-olds.
How do infants come to understand references to absent objects? 14-month-old infants first learned a name for a novel toy, which was then placed out of view. The infants who listened to a story mentioning the nonvisible object, looked, pointed, and searched for it more often than did infants who heard a story using a different name. Their behavior was affected by minor changes in context; they responded to the name of the out-of-view toy less often when it was not easily accessible or after a delay. These findings indicate that the development of absence reference comprehension depends on the interaction of representational and contextual factors.
Ganea
Patricia A
PA
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. pas5a@virginia.edu
D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception