Children's Social Information Seeking is Sensitive to Referential Ambiguity
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 12, 2025

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
Published on: May 15, 2019
Emily Hembacher1, Benjamin deMayo1, Michael C Frank1
1Stanford University.
Abstract:
We examined children's spontaneous information seeking in response to referential ambiguity. Children ages 2-5 (n = 160) identified the referents of familiar and novel labels. We manipulated ambiguity by changing the number of objects present and their familiarity (Experiments 1 and 2), and the availability of referential gaze (Experiment 2). In both experiments, children looked to the face of the experimenter more often while responding, specifically when the referent was ambiguous. In Experiment 2, 3- to 4-year olds also demonstrated sensitivity to graded referential evidence. These results suggest that social information seeking is an active learning behavior that could contribute to language acquisition in early childhood.
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