Perspective taking and language comprehension : a comparison between Korean and English infants

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Previous research has shown that infants in their first year of life have primitive perspective-taking skills: they can consider an agent's incomplete perception when making sense of her action in terms of goals and preferences. However, it is unclear whether infants are able to use their perspective-taking and language comprehension abilities, especially article understanding, to make sense of social interactions. The present research thus examined whether Korean 14-month-olds and American 14-and 18-month-olds understand an agent's intention through her speech and predict the listener's reaction accordingly. In the research, infants saw two identical balls on the stage but one ball was occluded from an agent (Agent1) by an opaque screen. The other agent (Agent2) could see both balls as the infants did. If Agent1 requested 'ball' in Korean which does not contain an article system, Korean 14-month-old infants showed heightened interest when Agent2 grasped the ball hidden from Agent1 (Experiment 1). However, if Agent1 requested 'the ball' in English which has two articles, American 18-month-old infants (Experiment 2) but not 14-month-old infants (Experiment 3) responded with prolonged looking when Agent2 grabbed the hidden ball, suggesting that they seemed to understand that Agent1 requested the ball she could see. When Agent1 asked for 'a ball,' however, American 18-month-old infants responded differently (Experiment 2). Therefore, infants are not only able to use their perspective-taking skills but also language comprehension abilities, sensitivities to articles in this case, to understand two agents' interaction.|Previous research has shown that infants in their first year of life have primitive perspective-taking skills: they can consider an agent's incomplete perception when making sense of her action in terms of goals and preferences. However, it is unclear whether infants are able to use their perspective-taking and language comprehension abilities, especially article understanding, to make sense of social interactions. The present research thus examined whether Korean 14-month-olds and American 14-and 18-month-olds understand an agent's intention through her speech and predict the listener's reaction accordingly. In the research, infants saw two identical balls on the stage but one ball was occluded from an agent (Agent1) by an opaque screen. The other agent (Agent2) could see both balls as the infants did. If Agent1 requested 'ball' in Korean which does not contain an article system, Korean 14-month-old infants showed heightened interest when Agent2 grasped the ball hidden from Agent1 (Experiment 1). However, if Agent1 requested 'the ball' in English which has two articles, American 18-month-old infants (Experiment 2) but not 14-month-old infants (Experiment 3) responded with prolonged looking when Agent2 grabbed the hidden ball, suggesting that they seemed to understand that Agent1 requested the ball she could see. When Agent1 asked for 'a ball,' however, American 18-month-old infants responded differently (Experiment 2). Therefore, infants are not only able to use their perspective-taking skills but also language comprehension abilities, sensitivities to articles in this case, to understand two agents' interaction.