Infants' Use of Shared Linguistic Information to Clarify Ambiguous Requests

Abstract

Do infants use past linguistic information to interpret an ambiguous request for an object? When infants in this research were shown 2 objects, and asked for 1 with an indefinite request (e.g., "Can you get it for me?"), both 15- and 18-month-olds used the speaker's previous reference to an absent object to interpret the request. The 18-month-olds did so even when the request was made after a 2.5-min delay. When the request was made by a person who did not participate in the conversation, the infants did not use the previous verbal information. These results demonstrate infants' ability to use language as a source of information in ambiguous contexts and indicate an early appreciation of the shared nature of conversation.