Two‐ and Four‐Year‐Olds Learn to Adapt Referring Expressions to Context: Effects of Distracters and Feedback on Referential Communication

Abstract

Children often refer to things ambiguously but learn not to from responding to clarification requests. We review and explore this learning process here. In Study 1, eighty-four 2-and 4-year-olds were tested for their ability to request stickers from either (a) a small array with one dissimilar distracter or (b) a large array containing similar distracters. When children made ambiguous requests, they received either general feedback or specific questions about which of two options they wanted. With training, children learned to produce more complex object descriptions and did so faster in the specific feedback condition. They also tended to provide more information when requesting stickers from large arrays. In Study 2, we varied only distracter similarity during training and then varied array size in a generalization test. Children found it harder to learn in this case. In the generalization test, 4-year-olds were more likely to provide information (a) when it was needed because distracters were similar to the target and (b) when the array size was greater (regardless of need for information). We discuss how clear cues to potential ambiguity are needed for children to learn to tailor their referring expression to context and how several cues of heuristic value (e.g., more distracters > say more) can promote the efficiency of communication while language is developing. Finally, we consider whether it would be worthwhile drawing on the human learning process when developing algorithms for the production of referring expressions.

How do 3- and 5-year-olds respond to under- and over-informative utterances?

“…Thus, children as young as 3 years of age were more reluctant to imitate an adjective if they thought its use would be over-informative. This is in line with findings that, in simplified contexts, children as young as 2 years of age tend to avoid producing redundant information in their referring expressions (Matthews et al, 2007(Matthews et al, , 2012. Therefore it seems to be the case that from 3 years of age, children are able to make a simple association between the presence of a contrast set and the use of a modified expression (be this with an adjective or prepositional phrase).…”

Models and empirical data for the production of referring expressions

“…Olson, 1970;Pechmann, 1989;Brennan & Clark, 1996;Belke & Meyer, 2002), developmental psychologists (e.g. Ford & Olson, 1975;Deutsch & Pechmann, 1982;Matthews, Butcher, Lieven, & Tomasello, 2012), and computational linguists (e.g. Dale, 1989;Dale & Reiter, 1995;.…”

How children learn to produce appropriate referring expressions in narratives: the role of clarification requests and modeling

“…Instead, they learn strategies that they have observed or learnt to be effective given the global goal (Matthews et al 2012). Whether this learning would generalize to novel narratives is an important outstanding question.…”

“…The models this provides are the active ingredients that help children learn. Children may have a global sense of the need to use these models without understanding their specific function at first (Matthews et al, 2012). Future research should explore the potentially powerful role for imitation when children have a clear goal and adopt adults' means of achieving it, at first without fully understanding these means (Klinger, Mayor & Bannard, 2016;Want & Harris, 2002;Whiten, McGuigan, Marshall-Pescini, & Hopper, 2009 A big boy and a little boy went to the park with their granddad.…”

“…Using the same scenario, Matthews, Butcher, Lieven and Tomasello (2012) found that two-and four-year-olds learned to produce appropriate descriptions of the intended stickers faster after receiving specific feedback (e.g., "Do you need the dad or the boy?") from their conversational partner than after receiving general feedback (e.g., "Who do you need?…”