Preschoolers’ relevance inferences in linguistic and non‐linguistic contexts

Abstract

Understanding symbols requires going beyond what they literally are, and figuring out what they're intended to communicate. For example, a drawing of a bird (or the word bird) could refer to a particular bird, a species, etc. . . The interpreter must decide between these intended meanings. We ask how children go beyond the literal meanings of communicative acts (i.e., compute pragmatic inferences), and whether these inferences are domain-general. We tested 443 US 2-to 6-year-olds' inferences about the referential interpretation of ambiguous symbols. We manipulated the domain (e.g., word or a drawing) and task (interpret vs. create the communicative act). Children robustly identified the referents of ambiguous symbols and chose from among alternatives during linguistic and non-linguistic communication tasks. There were no effects of age or domain on performance. These data provide some of the earliest evidence of children's computations of pragmatic inferences, and provide exciting evidence that pragmatic inferences may extend beyond the domain of language.