The Confused Robot: Two-Year-Olds’ Responses to Breakdowns in Conversation
TL;DR: This paper found that preschool children at two ages conversed with a toy robot during a play session, during which the robot inserted either general (e.g., What?) or specific queries in response to selected utterances, and children replied to these breakdowns in conversation indicated they were sensitive to the pragmatic requirements of these different types of query.
Abstract: Preschool children at two ages conversed with a toy robot during a play session. During the conversations the robot inserted either general (e.g., What?) or specific (e.g., Piggy is in what?) contingent queries in response to selected utterances. The children’s replies to these breakdowns in conversation indicated they were sensitive to the pragmatic requirements of these different types of query. By 33 months of age, the children replied to general queries with complete repetitions of their prior misunderstood utterance, and replied to specific queries with only the required constituentinformation. At 27 months of age, the children’s predominant strategy was to reply to both forms of query with complete repetitions, although the data suggest some degree of sensitivity to these different forms is also present in this younger group. These results are interpreted in terms of children’s sensitivity to Grice’s (1975) quantity rule and the potential changes in social cognition underlying children’s compliance with this rule.
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TL;DR: A core set of pragmatic assessment tools can be identified from the proliferation of instruments in current use and further research is required to establish clearer norms and ranges in the development of pragmatic ability, particularly with respect to the understanding of inference, topic management and coherence.
Abstract: Background: The assessment of pragmatics expressed in spoken language is a central issue in the evaluation of children with communication impairments and related disorders. A developmental approach to assessment has remained problematic due to the complex interaction of social, linguistic, cognitive and cultural influences on pragmatics.
Method: A selective review and critique of current formal and informal testing methods and pragmatic analytic procedures.
Results: Formal testing of pragmatics has limited potential to reveal the typical pragmatic abnormalities in interaction but has a significant role to play in the assessment of comprehension of pragmatic intent. Clinical assessment of pragmatics with the pre-school child should focus on elicitation of communicative intent via naturalistic methods as part of an overall assessment of social communication skills. Assessments for older children should include a comprehensive investigation of speech acts, conversational and narrative abilities, the understanding of implicature and intent as well as the child's ability to employ contextual cues to understanding. Practical recommendations are made regarding the choice of a core set of pragmatic assessments and elicitation techniques. The practitioner's attention is drawn to the lack of the usual safeguards of reliability and validity that have persisted in some language pragmatics assessments.
Conclusions: A core set of pragmatic assessment tools can be identified from the proliferation of instruments in current use. Further research is required to establish clearer norms and ranges in the development of pragmatic ability, particularly with respect to the understanding of inference, topic management and coherence.
261 citations
TL;DR: The findings of the present study indicate that preschool children are sensitive to the violation of the Relation, Quality, and Quantity maxims at least under some conditions.
Abstract: Grice (Syntax and semantics: Speech acts, 1975, pp. 41–58, Vol. 3) proposed that conversation is guided by a spirit of cooperation that involves adherence to several conversational maxims. Three types of maxims were explored in the current study: 1) Quality, to be truthful; 2) Relation, to say only what is relevant to a conversation; and 3) Quantity, to provide as much information as required. Three- to five-year-olds were tested to determine the age at which an awareness of these Gricean maxims emerges. Children requested the help of one of two puppets in finding a hidden sticker. One puppet always adhered to the maxim being tested, while the other always violated it. Consistently choosing the puppet that adhered to the maxim was considered indicative of an understanding of that maxim. The results indicate that children were initially only successful in the Relation condition. While in general, children performed better at first in the Quantity condition compared with the Quality condition, 3-year-olds never performed above chance in the Quantity condition. The findings of the present study indicate that preschool children are sensitive to the violation of the Relation, Quality, and Quantity maxims at least under some conditions.
64 citations
Cites result from "The Confused Robot: Two-Year-Olds’ ..."
...The present findings are more in accordance with research examining the use of the maxims in children’s speech production (Dunham et al., 2000; Ferrier et al., 2000; O’Neill, 1996; Pellegrini et al., 1987)....
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TL;DR: The findings suggest that distinct styles develop slowly and that early style-dependent differences in children's speech are unlike those observed in adult clear and casual speech.
Abstract: Purpose To examine when and how socially conditioned distinct speaking styles emerge in typically developing preschool children’s speech. Method Thirty preschool children, ages 3, 4, and 5 years old, produced target monosyllabic words with monophthongal vowels in different social–functional contexts designed to elicit clear and casual speaking styles. Thirty adult listeners were used to assess whether and at what age style differences were perceptible. Children’s speech was acoustically analyzed to evaluate how style-dependent differences were produced. Results The ratings indicated that listeners could not discern style differences in 3-year-olds' speech but could hear distinct styles in 4-year-olds' and especially in 5-year-olds' speech. The acoustic measurements were consistent with these results: Style-dependent differences in 4- and 5-year-olds' words included shorter vowel durations and lower fundamental frequency in clear compared with casual speech words. Five-year-olds' clear speech words also ha...
28 citations
Cites background from "The Confused Robot: Two-Year-Olds’ ..."
...…in young children as well as on context- or listener-induced language switching in bilingual children suggests that this awareness is in place by the end of the second year of life (Alexander et al., 1997; Brinton et al., 1986; Ferrier et al., 2000; Genesee, 2001; Genesee &Nicoladis, 1997)....
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...Studies on communicative repair strategies in young children as well as on context- or listener-induced language switching in bilingual children suggests that this awareness is in place by the end of the second year of life (Alexander et al., 1997; Brinton et al., 1986; Ferrier et al., 2000; Genesee, 2001; Genesee &Nicoladis, 1997)....
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TL;DR: The effects of using messages with conversational rule violations on attitudes toward people who used utterance-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems in transactional interactions are examined and technological implications point to the development of schema/script-based systems and intelligent editing.
Abstract: This study examined the effects of using messages with conversational rule violations on attitudes toward people who used utterance-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems in transactional interactions. Specifically, the ratings were compared across messages with relevance, informativeness, and brevity violations, when latency remained constant (i.e., short). The 96 participating sales clerks viewed scripted, videotaped bookstore conversations and completed an attitude questionnaire. Results indicated that the prestored message with repeated words/phrases was rated the highest, followed by the message with excessive information; next was the message with inadequate information, followed by the message with partly relevant information. The findings may be useful to those using utterance-based systems when making message choices during interactions with service providers. Technological implications point to the development of schema/script-based systems and intelligent editing.
17 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the pragmatic language abilities of children with Williams syndrome (WS) and typically developing (TD) controls in an object-choice situation, where the experimenter verbally expressed his understanding or misunderstanding of the choice and then gave the children the desired or undesired object.
11 citations