Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-2pp2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T14:51:57.482Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two-year-old children differentiate test questions from genuine questions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2011

GERLIND GROSSE  and
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
GERLIND GROSSE*
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
*
Address for correspondence: Gerlind Grosse, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology – Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig 04103, Germany. e-mail: gerlind.grosse@eva.mpg.de
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Children are frequently confronted with so-called ‘test questions’. While genuine questions are requests for missing information, test questions ask for information obviously already known to the questioner. In this study we explored whether two-year-old children respond differentially to one and the same question used as either a genuine question or as a test question based on the situation (playful game versus serious task) and attitude (playful ostensive cues versus not). Results indicated that children responded to questions differently on the basis of the situation but not the expressed attitude of the questioner. Two-year-old children thus understand something of the very special communicative intentions behind test questions.

Information

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 192 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

[*]

We would like to thank Stefanie Voigt for help with data collection, Angela Loose for helpful advice with the procedure and Roger Mundry for statistical advice. We also want to thank two anonymous reviewers from JCL for a helpful critique. Many thanks go to the participating children and their parents.

References

REFERENCES

Allen, R. (1991). Integration of communicational cues by very young children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 20(5), 389–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Babelot, G. & Marcos, H. (1999). Comprehension of directives in young children: Influence of social situation and linguistic form. First Language 19, 165–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bosco, F. M., Bucciarelli, M. & Bara, B. G. (2004). The fundamental context categories in understanding communicative intention. Journal of Pragmatics 36, 467–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brice-Heath, S. (1988). Language socialization. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 188(42), 29–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dore, J. (1977). ‘Oh them sheriff’: A pragmatic analysis of children's responses to questions. In Ervin-Tripp, S. & Mitchell-Kernan, C. (eds), Child discourse, 139–63. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritzley, V. H. & Lee, K. (2003). Do young children always say yes to yes–no questions? A metadevelopmental study of the affirmation bias. Child Development 74, 1297–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, C. (1975). Requests and responses in children's speech. Journal of Child Language 2(1), 41–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, D. & Lakoff, G. (1971). Conversational postulates. In Papers from the Seventh Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, 63–84. Chicago: Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Grice, P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In Cole, P. & Morgan, J. (eds), Syntax and semantics. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Grosse, G., Moll, H. & Tomasello, M. (2010). Twenty-one-month-olds understand the co-operative logic of requests. Journal of Pragmatics 42(12), 3377–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holzman, M. (1972). The use of interrogative forms in the verbal interactions of three mothers and their children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 1, 311–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, K. & Eskritt, M. (1999). Beyond the Gricean maxims: Conversational awareness as a multifaceted domain of knowledge. Developmental Science 2(1), 27–8.Google Scholar
Liebal, K., Behne, T., Carpenter, M. & Tomasello, M. (2009). Infants use shared experience to interpret pointing gestures. Developmental Science 12(2), 264–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lillard, A. (1999). Siegal on Piaget's legacy: Gricean child meets blundering experimenter. Developmental Science 2(1), 18–21.Google Scholar
Lillard, A., Nishida, T., Massaro, D., Vaish, A., Ma, L. & McRoberts, G. (2007). Signs of pretense across age and scenario. Infancy 11(1), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M. & Tomasello, M. (2008). Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately for knowledgeable and ignorant partners. Cognition 108(3), 732–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moll, H. & Tomasello, M. (2007). How 14- and 18-month-olds know what others have experienced. Developmental Psychology 43(2), 309–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nishida, T. K. & Lillard, A. S. (2007). The informative value of emotional expressions: ‘Social referencing’ in mother–child pretense. Developmental Science 10(2), 205–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Okanda, M. & Itakura, S. (2010). When do children exhibit a ‘Yes’ bias? Child Development 81(2), 568–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olsen-Fulero, L. & Conforti, J. (1983). Child responsiveness to mother questions of varying type and presentation. Journal of Child Language 10, 495–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Neill, D. K. (1996). Two-year-old children's sensitivity to a parent's knowledge state when making requests. Child Development 67(2), 659–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rakoczy, H. & Tomasello, M. (2006). Two-year-olds grasp the intentional structure of pretense acts. Developmental Science 9(6), 557–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Salomo, D., Graf, E., Lieven, E. & Tomasello, M. (in press). The role of perceptual availability and discourse context in young children's question-answering. Journal of Child Language.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: An essay on the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M. (1978). Children's comprehension of their mothers' question directives. Journal of Child Language 5, 39–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shatz, M. (1979). How to do things by asking: Form–function pairings in mother's questions and their relation to children's responses. Child Development 50(4), 1093–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegal, M. (1999). Language and thought: The fundamental significance of conversational awareness for cognitive development. Developmental Science 2(1), 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siraj-Blatchford, I. & Manni, L. (2008). ‘Would you like to tidy up now?’ An analysis of adult questioning in the English Foundation Stage. Early Years 28(1), 5–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. (1972). Mother's speech to children learning language. Child Development 43, 549–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2008). Origins of human communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Haberl, K. (2003). Understanding attention: 12- and 18-month-olds know what is new for other persons. Developmental Psychology 39(5), 906–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, K. & Armstrong, L. (1995). Do mothers and fathers interact differently with their child or is it the situation which matters? Child: Care, Health and Development 21(3), 161–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warneken, F. & Tomasello, M. (2007). Helping and cooperation at 14 months of age. Infancy 11, 271–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Waterman, A. H., Blades, M. & Spencer, C. (2004). Indicating when you do not know the answer: The effect of question format and interviewer knowledge on children's ‘don't know’ responses. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 22, 335–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (2004). Relevance Theory. In Horn, L. R. & Ward, G. (eds), The Handbook of pragmatics, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar