Infants interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects

The current studies investigated 2 skills involved in 14- to 20- month-olds' ability to interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects: tracking others' experiences (Study 1) and representing links between speakers and object features across present and absent reference episodes (Study 2). In the basic task, 2 experimenters played separately with a different ball. The balls were placed in opaque containers. One experimenter asked infants to retrieve her ball using an ambiguous request ("Where's the ball?"). In Study 1, infants used the experimenter's prior verbal and physical contact with the ball to interpret the request. A control condition demonstrated that infants were interpreting the request and not responding to the mere presence of the experimenter. Study 2 revealed that only infants who were given stable cues to the ball's spatial location appropriately interpreted the request: When spatial information was put in conflict with a color cue, infants did not select the correct ball. Links to infants' spatial memory skills and emerging pragmatic understanding are discussed.