title: Accent, Language, and Race: 4-6-Year-Old Children's Inferences Differ by Speaker Cue.
abstract: Three experiments examined 4- to 6-year-olds' use of potential cues to geographic background. In Experiment 1 (N = 72), 4- to 5-year-olds used a speaker's foreign accent to infer that they currently live far away, but 6-year-olds did not. In Experiment 2 (N = 72), children at all ages used accent to infer where a speaker was born. In both experiments, race played some role in children's geographic inferences. Finally, in Experiment 3 (N = 48), 6-year-olds used language to infer both where a speaker was born and where they currently live. These findings reveal critical differences across development in the ways that speaker characteristics are used as inferential cues to a speaker's geographic location and history.
authors.affiliation: University of Waterloo.
authors.forename: Drew
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Weatherhead
authors.affiliation: University of Waterloo.
authors.forename: Ori
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2346-9787
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Friedman
authors.affiliation: University of Waterloo.
authors.forename: Katherine S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: White
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D009864:Ontario / Q000208:ethnology; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013850:Thinking / Q000502:physiology*