The development of hypothetical reference in the speech of young children

Kuczaj, Stan A.; Daly, Mary J.

doi:10.1017/s0305000900002543

Cited by 65 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Because young children in Study 2 were asked to think in the hypothetical about their sharing, it is important to note that prior research indicates that preschool-age children can make sense of simple, future-oriented hypothetical situations (e.g., [35], [36]). We anticipated two possible outcomes.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

I Should but I Won’t: Why Young Children Endorse Norms of Fair Sharing but Do Not Follow Them

2013

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Young children endorse fairness norms related to sharing, but often act in contradiction to those norms when given a chance to share. This phenomenon has rarely been explored in the context of a single study. Using a novel approach, the research presented here offers clear evidence of this discrepancy and goes on to examine possible explanations for its diminution with age. In Study 1, 3–8-year-old children readily stated that they themselves should share equally, asserted that others should as well, and predicted that others had shared equally with them. Nevertheless, children failed to engage in equal sharing until ages 7–8. In Study 2, 7–8-year-olds correctly predicted that they would share equally, and 3–6-year-olds correctly predicted that they would favor themselves, ruling out a failure-of-willpower explanation for younger children's behavior. Similarly, a test of inhibitory control in Study 1 also failed to explain the shift with age toward adherence to the endorsed norm. The data suggest that, although 3-year-olds know the norm of equal sharing, the weight that children attach to this norm increases with age when sharing involves a cost to the self.

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Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

I Should but I Won’t: Why Young Children Endorse Norms of Fair Sharing but Do Not Follow Them

2013

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“…Kuczaj and Daly (1979) have also shown that children as young as 3 years of age have the capacity for future hypothetical reference. At this point, it is important to note that although Tulving and others have argued that episodic memory does not fully develop until 4 or 5 years of age (e.g., Nelson, 1992;Perner & Ruffman, 1995;Wheeler, Stuss, & Tulving, 1997), no similar arguments have been put forth about when episodic future thinking may develop.…”

Section: Future-oriented Languagementioning

confidence: 98%

My future self: Young children's ability to anticipate and explain future states

Atance

Meltzoff

2005

Cognitive Development

221

215

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Two experiments examine preschool-aged children's ability to anticipate physiological states of the self. One hundred and eight 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were presented with stories and pictorial scenes designed to evoke thought about future states such as thirst, cold, and hunger. They were asked to imagine themselves in these scenarios and to choose one item from a set of three that they would need. Only one of the items could be used to address the future state. In both experiments, developmental differences were obtained for correct item choices and types of verbal explanations. In Experiment 2, the performance of the 3-and 4-year-olds was negatively affected by introducing items that were semantically associated with the scenarios but did not address the future state, whereas the 5-year-olds' performance was not. Results are discussed with respect to children's understanding of the future, theory of mind, and inhibitory control skills. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Thinking about the future is an integral aspect of human cognition. Much of our behavior is future-oriented. For instance, in choosing a career path, we may anticipate how the various options will contribute to our future happiness and success. We then modify our present actions to bring about these future goals. In this example, we are predicting the emotional consequences, or states, that our particular career choice will engender. However, there are other states, in addition to emotional ones, that are important for us to anticipate. For example, we may anticipate how our behavior will affect our own, or another's, mental state * Corresponding author. Present address:

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“…Differences may be due to different testing methods or the difficulty of the construction to be tested. Thus future hypothetical reference is an earlier and apparently easier acquisition than past hypothetical reference (Kuczaj & Daly 1979).…”

Section: Scoringmentioning

confidence: 88%

Reversibility and the acquisition of complex syntactic structures in 3- to 7-year-old children

Trosborg

1982

First Language

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In recent years the role of general cognitive development in language acquisition has been stressed (e.g. Piaget, Sinclair). However, most often this relationship is implied, rather than empirically verified. This paper provides data for both linguistic and cognitive functioning in the same children. It is concerned with the acquisition of active/passive sentences (synonymy judgement) and temporally, causally, and conditionally related sequences in relation to 'reversal skills'.Ability to relate active and passive sentences in order to judge meaning equivalence and the ability to reverse clause order to correspond with event order and/or cause-effect is dependent on the child's ability to perform reversible operations as involved in conservation tasks. The concept of time is supposed to be spatial in origin (seriation tasks), and an understanding of relational time is dependent on the ability to decentre and coordinate (picture arrangement task). Also conditionals require reversible transformations and coordination of several internal structures.Only at the age from 5 to 7 and onwards can children comprehend the complex structures in question, if they have to rely on syntactic information alone for their interpretation, but if the child can rely on his knowledge of the world, he can begin to interpret/produce these structures already at the age of 3, that is before he has achieved reversible operations.

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The development of hypothetical reference in the speech of young children

Cited by 65 publications

References 7 publications

I Should but I Won’t: Why Young Children Endorse Norms of Fair Sharing but Do Not Follow Them

I Should but I Won’t: Why Young Children Endorse Norms of Fair Sharing but Do Not Follow Them

My future self: Young children's ability to anticipate and explain future states

Reversibility and the acquisition of complex syntactic structures in 3- to 7-year-old children

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