ERIC Number: EJ1219987
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-Aug
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-7393
EISSN: N/A
Referential Processing in 3- and 5-Year-Old Children Is Egocentrically Anchored
Ostashchenko, Ekaterina; Deliens, Gaétane; Geelhand, Philippine; Bertels, Julie; Kissine, Mikhail
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v45 n8 p1387-1397 Aug 2019
An ongoing debate in the literature on language acquisition is whether preschool children process reference in an egocentric way or whether they spontaneously and by-default take their partner's perspective into account. The reported study implements a computerized referential task with a controlled trial presentation and simple verbal instructions. Contrary to the predictions of the partner-specific view, entrained referential precedents give rise to faster processing for 3- and 5-year-old children, independently of whether the conversational partner is the same as in the lexical entrainment phase or not. Additionally, both age groups display a processing preference for the interaction with the same partner, be it for new or previously used referential descriptions. These results suggest that preschool children may adapt to their conversational partner; however, partner-specificity is encoded as low-level auditory-phonological priming rather than through inferences about a partner's perspective.
Descriptors: Preschool Children, Psychological Patterns, Perspective Taking, Language Processing, Foreign Countries, Verbal Ability, Intelligence Tests, Vocabulary, Reaction Time, French
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Belgium
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test; Leiter International Performance Scale
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A