Learning words: children disregard some pragmatic information that conflicts with mutual exclusivity.
Children tend to infer that when a speaker uses a new label, the label refers to an unlabeled object rather than one they already know the label for. Does this inference reflect a default assumption that words are mutually exclusive? Or does it instead reflect the result of a pragmatic reasoning process about what the speaker intended? In two studies, we distinguish between these possibilities. Preschoolers watched as a speaker pointed toward (Study 1) or looked at (Study 2) a familiar object while requesting the referent for a new word (e.g. 'Can you give me the blicket?'). In both studies, despite the speaker's unambiguous behavioral cue indicating an intent to refer to a familiar object, children inferred that the novel label referred to an unfamiliar object. These results suggest that children expect words to be mutually exclusive even when a speaker provides some kinds of pragmatic evidence to the contrary.
Jaswal
Vikram K
VK
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia 22904, USA. jaswal@virginia.edu
Hansen
Mikkel B
MB
D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D014796:Visual Perception; D014825:Vocabulary