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Related Experiment Videos

Infants interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects.

Megan M Saylor1, Patricia Ganea

  • 1Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA. m.saylor@vanderbilt.edu

Developmental Psychology
|May 9, 2007
PubMed
Summary
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Toddlers aged 14-20 months interpret ambiguous requests by tracking speaker experience and object location. Infants use prior interactions and spatial cues, not just presence, to understand requests for absent objects.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science
  • Linguistic Pragmatics

Background:

  • Infants must interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects.
  • This requires understanding speaker intentions and object properties.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate how 14- to 20-month-olds interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects.
  • Examine the roles of tracking others' experiences and representing object-speaker links.

Main Methods:

  • Two studies used ambiguous requests ('Where's the ball?') with 14- to 20-month-old infants.
  • Study 1: Infants tracked experimenter's interaction with a ball.
  • Study 2: Infants used spatial or conflicting color cues to identify a ball.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Infants used prior verbal and physical contact to interpret requests (Study 1).
  • Infants relied on stable spatial location cues over conflicting color cues (Study 2).
  • Control conditions confirmed infants interpreted the request, not just experimenter presence.

Conclusions:

  • Infants integrate social-communicative cues and object representations to interpret ambiguous requests.
  • This ability is linked to developing spatial memory and pragmatic understanding.
  • Findings shed light on early language acquisition and social cognition.