Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
Running Head: CONVERSATION CUES & SELECTION OF INFORMATION
SOURCES
Children’s and Adults’ Use of Conversation Cues When Selecting Sources of
Information
Sarah S. DeLisle
Vanderbilt University
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Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
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Abstract
Word learning may be best characterized by the ability to recruit information from
social others. One question, then, is how children decide to learn words from one person
versus another. The present study investigates the possibility that children use a speaker’s
ability to follow conversational norms when deciding whether to receive information
about object labels. In particular, we investigated whether adults and four-year-olds are
sensitive to violations of the Gricean maxims of quality and relation. Adults revealed
sensitivity to violations of each maxim and used this to select from whom they received
information. Four-year-olds were not sensitive to these violations. Future studies might
pinpoint why children were unsuccessful in using the violations to decide whether to
learn words from someone.
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Children’s and Adults’ use of Conversational Cues when Selecting Sources of
Information
Early word learning is quite amazing. In only a few short years a child’s
vocabulary grows at a rapid pace. The skill with which children rapidly learn new words
may be best explained in terms of their ability to recruit information from social others.
Word learning is a social process; almost all of the information that children acquire
comes from information that has been provided by another person (Bruner, 1990).
Because children are learning information from social others, the quality of the
information they learn is going to be determined by the quality of the source. Hence, one
task children face is determining whether someone is a good source of information.
Consequently, determining how children evaluate the quality of an information source is
a question of importance. Discovering the answer to this question will provide insight
into how children learn from social others.
Past research has indicated that preschool children have some methods of
determining whether someone is likely to be a good source of information. Research has
indicated that children use the past accuracy of an informant when deciding whether to
receive information from the individual. For example, when given the option of whether
to receive new information from a past reliable or a past unreliable source, four-year-old
children choose to receive information from the previously reliable informant (Clément,
Koenig, & Harris, 2004). Additionally, when a previously reliable and previously
unreliable information source both gave conflicting information, children chose to
believe the information provided by the past reliable source (Koenig, 2007; Koenig and
Harris, 2005). Furthermore, Koenig & Harris (2005) concluded that 3-year-olds are less
systematic in their choice of likely reliable sources. In particular, 3-year-olds only
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showed a difference in learning from social partners when informants were consistently
accurate; 3-year-olds would not learn from an informant who made a mislabeling
mistake. Pasquini, Corriveau, Koenig, and Harris (2007) added to these findings by
determining that 3-year-olds did not trust individuals who made a single error, while 4year-olds considered the number of errors in the context of the relative frequency of
mistakes and, used this information to determine whether to trust the information that the
individual provided. Thus, this research indicates that children around the age of four
begin to reason more critically about the likely validity of an information source based on
at least one aspect of that source. In particular, they use the past accuracy of the
informant to determine whether they should learn from the person.
In addition to children attending to the past reliability of an informant in
determining the quality of the information that she provides, research also suggests that
4-year-olds are capable of attending to other related social cues. Koenig and Harris
(2005) found that children consider cue words (e.g. “I know” versus “I think”) related to
the blatant admission of knowledge or self-doubt in determining whether to learn the
piece of information in question from the source. In particular, 3-and 4-year-olds
consistently endorse labels offered by more confident speakers—speakers who use
phrases indicating certainty (e.g. “I know”) as opposed to those offered by less confident
speakers—speakers who used words indicating uncertainty (e.g. “I am not sure;” “I
think”). Baldwin and Sabbagh (2001) also found that by four years of age children
considered hesitancy of a source when determining whether to believe information
provided. These findings, in conjunction with the findings on past reliability indicate that
at around age four children are capable of judging the quality of an information source
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based on some aspects of verbal behavior in addition to the past reliability of an
information source.
Among the research on children’s evaluation of an information source, few
studies have focused on other cues that characterize social interactions. Such studies for
4-year-olds are of particular interest because it is at this age that many children enter into
a school setting where they have more social opportunity in number and in kind. As
children begin to interact with a wider range of people in more diverse contexts, they may
be forced to rely on a larger variety of cues when determining the likely quality of an
information source. One set of cues that older children might come to use when
determining the quality of information from a source is the ability of the source to follow
conversational principles.
There has been little research investigating the possibility that children attend to
conversational principles when determining the likely correctness of the information that
a source provides. Research indicates that individuals do create social representations of
social partners (Spelke & Kinzler, 2007), but no research has yet tested if representations
of conversational partners affect evaluation of the quality of information that a source
provides. Such representations define a good social partner as an individual that follows
social conventions such as joint attention, appropriate response to comments and
questions, eye contact, and appropriate gestures. A bad social partner is an individual
who does not adhere to such social conventions
In the present study, the central research question is whether children and adults
are more likely to learn words from “good” social partners or from “poor” partners. For
this study, the creation of a “good” social partner and “poor” social partner in terms of
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conversational ability was developed from research by Paul Grice. Paul Grice (1975)
developed a set of assumptions that script how conversational partners should interact
with each other. Grice grouped these assumptions into the categories of quality, quantity,
relation, and manner; he placed all of these categories under the general Cooperative
Principle, which states: “Make your conversational contribution such as required, at the
stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose and the direction of talk exchange in
which you are engaged.” Each of the four maxims provides further insight into the
meaning behind the Cooperative Principle. The maxim of quality states that speakers
should say only what they know to be true. The maxim of manner addresses speakers to
avoid ambiguity by being clear and succinct. The maxim of quantity says that speakers
should say only as much as needed to be informative without saying more than what as
necessary. The maxim of relation suggests that speakers should make each statement
relevant to the context and to what has previously been stated.
For this study, the ability of 4-year-olds and adults to evaluate the likely accuracy
of information based on the source’s ability to adhere to the maxim of relation and to the
maxim of quality was tested. These two maxims were selected in particular due to past
research. Research by Eskritt, Whalen, and Lee (2008) found that children aged three to
five become aware of these two maxims first. In this study children watched as two
puppets gave hints to an experimenter about the location of a sticker which was hidden
under one of four cups. One of the puppets violated a Gricean maxim while the other
adhered to the maxim in the hint giving. Children were then asked to play the game and
to choose one of the puppets to give them a hint about where the sticker was hidden
Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
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under the cups. Children above chance chose the puppet that adhered to the Gricean
principles of relation and quality.
Since children at this age can recognize violations of relation and quality, we ask
whether children at this age will also be able to apply such knowledge to make judgments
about the information that a source provides in the context of word learning. We also
conducted the study on adults, believing that if children and adults can identify good and
bad social partners based on these Gricean principles, it might be likely that both age
groups apply this information to determine from whom to trust new information.
In the present study, we tested this in the context of children’s and adult’s word
learning. Based on the previous research by Eskritt et al. (2008), we hypothesized that
violations of Gricean maxims would be apparent to all participants. Additionally, using
previous research about past accuracy and hesitancy (Clément et al., 2004; Koenig and
Harris, 2005; Koenig, 2007; Baldwin and Sabbagh, 2001), we hypothesized that children
and adults would be more likely to view individuals who adhere to the maxims as quality
information sources and therefore, would more likely believe the novel label that they
attributed to a novel object.
Methods
Participants
Twenty-eight four-year-olds aged from 4;3 to 5;0 (M = 4 years; 6 months, 15
females, 13 males) and eighteen adults aged from 18 years to 22 years (19 females, 4
males) participated in the study. Child participants were typically developing,
monolingual English speakers from predominately middle class families. Participants
were recruited by phone from a university database that listed birth records of families
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interested in participating in research and residing in the Nashville, Tennessee area.
Participants in the study received a small toy or a book as compensation.
Adult participants were recruited through email and announcements in various
classes at Vanderbilt University. Adult participants received a candy bar or course credit
as compensation for their participation.
Materials and Equipment
In the study, participants sat on a love seat equidistant from two televisions. The
participants were shown a different video on each of the televisions. One video featured a
“bad” social partner violating the conversational maxim of relation or quality while
interacting with a neutral partner. The other video featured a “good” social partner
adhering to that same conversational maxim while interacting with the same neutral
partner. The video featuring the violation of the maxim in the quality condition showed
the bad social partner stating something that was not true. The video of a violation in the
maxim of relation condition featured the bad social partner responding to the neutral
partner’s questions with a random, unrelated comment. Each video interaction presented
two clips of the actress violating or adhering to the maxim. Participants were shown each
video twice. The two actresses who played either the good social partner or poor social
partner were females named Megan and Teddi. Each interacted with the same neutral
partner named Mark. Within each condition children either saw Megan as the good social
partner and Teddi as the bad or vice versa. Teddi was featured in the context of playing
with toy animals regardless of the condition or whether she played the good or bad role.
Megan was featured in the context of playing with balloons regardless of the condition or
Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
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whether she was featured as the good or bad social partner. See Table 1 for video scripts.
Each of the videos lasted less than one minute.
The participants (both 4-year-olds and adults) were introduced to four novel
words given for eight novel objects. Therefore, every label was used on two objects. The
novel objects included parts of toys that would not be known by the participant. The
novel words included dake, glap, trome, teg. The novel words given for the objects were
selected because they followed word patterns associated with English. See Figure 1. The
novel objects were pulled from a shoe box decorated with construction paper and stickers
that was referred to by the experimenter as a “toy box.”
Design
The study was designed to test the Gricean maxims of relation and of quality in
two separate conditions. A between-subjects design was used. Four-year-olds were
randomly assigned to one of the two conditions: Quality (N = 16; 9 females and 7 males)
or Relation (N = 12; 6 females and 6 males). Adult participants were similarly randomly
assigned to one of the two conditions: Quality (N = 11; 10 females and 1 male) or
Relation (N = 12; 9 females and 3 males). For either condition participants viewed two
videos. Participants in the Quality condition saw one video with a person violating the
quality maxim and one video with a person adhering to the maxim. Participants in the
relation condition saw one video with a person violating the quality relation maxim and
one video with a person adhering to the maxim.
Which actress (Megan or Teddi) was the good or bad social partner, the order the
videos were shown, and the tv that each video was shown on were roughly
counterbalanced across participants.
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After watching the videos, the participants participated in the word learning trial.
The order for which the novel pairings/labels were presented was roughly
counterbalanced so that each pair appeared in each position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) equally often.
Procedure
The session with child participants began with a 10 minute warm-up session.
During this session the experimenter informed parents about the study, obtained consent,
and played with a puzzle or drew a picture with the child. The warm-up session for adult
participants involved the adult reading a description of the study and signing a consent
form. After the warm-up session, the participant was asked to sit with the experimenter
on a couch facing two televisions of equal distance from the participant.
At this point, the experimental session began. The experimental session was
divided into four phases—video introduction, video viewing, word learning, and memory
check.
Video Introduction. The researcher set the context for watching the two videos by
telling the participant what was about to happen. When introducing the videos the
experimenter established that the two actors were her friends—“Today we’re going to
watch some of my friends on TV. Then we’re going to talk about the videos and play a
game! On this TV we are going to watch Megan and Mark playing with balloons. Then
on this TV we are going to watch Teddi and Mark playing with toy animals.” Participants
were then instructed once more to pay close attention because a game would follow.
Additionally, the experimenter stated the social partner’s name once again right before
showing each of the videos (e.g. “Let’s watch Megan/Teddi and Mark”).
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Video Viewing. During the video viewing, children watched each video one after the
other. After watching the first video once (which featured two clips of two separate
examples of the social partner either adhering or disregarding the maxim) the
experimenter said, “Let’s watch Teddi/Megan and Mark again.” The video was then
shown a second time. Next, the experimenter said, “Now, let’s watch Megan/Teddi and
Mark.” The process for the first video was then repeated.
Word Learning. Immediately following the video session, the word learning phase
began. The word learning phase featured four word learning test trials. The phase began
with the experimenter asking the participant to identify which of the actors “knows more
about stuff” and why. This question was designed to establish that participants had
distinguished the good and bad social partners in the videos.
Following this question, the word learning trials began. The experimenter set the
context for the word learning test by stating that she and the two social partners in the
videos had played with some toys the day before and that she was going to tell the
participant what they (Megan and Teddi) had said about the toys in her toy box.
After this introduction, four trials proceeded. Each trial consisted of the
participant being introduced to two novel objects. When the two novel objects were
presented, the researcher placed one of the novel objects in front of the TV in which the
bad social partner had been presented (simultaneously, the TV now showed a full-screen
picture of this social partner). The other object was placed in front of the TV where the
good social partner had been featured (this TV now featured a full-screen picture of this
social partner). While doing this, the experimenter gave the same novel name for each
object and attributed the label for the different object to one of the social partners (e.g.
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“Teddi called this a glap” and “Megan called this a glap.”). After presenting the same
label for two different objects and attributing the label to one of the social partners, the
researcher closed her eyes and held out both hands, asking, “Can you give me the glap?”
After the participant handed the researcher one of the objects, the researcher provided
neutral feedback (e.g “ok”) and said, “Can you give me the other toy?” Both toys were
then placed back into the toy box and a new trial began with the same procedure.
Memory. The participant was then asked questions to ensure he/she had attended to
the videos and remembered what happened during them. The participant was asked,
“What was Megan playing with—balloons or dolls?” and “What was Teddi playing
with—crayons or toy animals?” The participant was also asked, “Who would you rather
play with? Why?” to investigate whether the participant had a preference for one of the
social partners over the other.
The entire session lasted around ten minutes. The sessions with the child
participants were videotaped.
Coding
Our dependent measure was whether participants selected the novel object for
which the good social partner had provided the label. Both child and adult participants
received a score of 1 or a score of 0 for each of the four word learning trials. A score of 1
indicated that the participant had handed the object labeled by the good social partner to
the experimenter after the request was provided. A score of 0 indicated that the
participant handed the object labeled by the bad social partner to the researcher. There
were a total of four trials; therefore, the maximum score value for the word learning trials
was 4.
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Results
To investigate whether children and adults are sensitive to violations of the
conversational maxims of relation and quality a 2 (Age: 4 year olds vs. Adults) X 2
(Condition: Quality vs. Relation) between-subjects ANOVA was conducted on their
tendency to select the object that the good social partner had labeled. The analysis
revealed that there was no difference in the selection of the good social partner’s object
based on the social convention that was broken (relation or quality) (F(1, 47) = .10, p =
.76). Participants were equally likely to select the good social partner’s object in the
quality (M = 2.94, SD = .22) and relation (M = 3.04, SD = .23) conditions. There was a
difference in performance based on age (F(1,47) = 21.78, p < .001) with adults (M = 3.74,
SD = .24) being significantly more likely to choose to the good social partner’s object
than 4-year-olds (M = 2.250, SD = .22). There was no significant age X condition
interaction (F(1,47) = .10, p =.76). See Figure 2.
A second question concerned the reliability of a participant’s tendency to select
the good social partner’s object. One-sample t-tests revealed adults’ choice of the good
social partner’s object was above chance in both the quality (t(10) = 8.05, p < .001) and
in the relation condition, t(11)= 11.00, p < .001. In contrast, one sample t-tests revealed
4-year-olds to be at chance in their selection of the good social partner’s object in the
quality (t(15) = .67, p =.50) and relation condition (t(11) = .638, p = .54). These findings
indicate that adults use a social partner’s ability to follow the Gricean principles of
relation and quality to determine if the partner is a good source of information whereas
children do not reliably use such conventions.
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A second look at the data was conducted to determine possible reasons for
children’s poor performance selecting the labels provided by the good social partner. One
initial possibility was that children simply did not remember the interactions (and the
social partners) as well as the adults at the time of the word learning session. To ensure
that memory was not the cause of poor performance, participants were asked questions in
the memory phase about what each social partner was doing (e.g “What was Megan
playing with—balloons or dolls?”; What was Teddi playing with—crayons of toy
animals?”) All adult and 4-year-old participants responded to the memory related
questions at the end of the word learning phase with 100% accuracy. Therefore, the
difference in performance most likely cannot be explained by memory differences. If
children were remembering the social interactions of the two partners, then there was
another reason for the difference in child performance and adult performance.
A second possibility for poor performance was that 4-year-olds could not identify
which person “knew more” after viewing the videos. In order to investigate this, a chisquared test of association on the pattern of adults’ and of children’s responses to the
question: “Who knows more about stuff?” was conducted. The chi-squared analysis
indicated that there was a difference between the age groups in their responses, (χ² (1) =
21.64, p < .001). A look at the pattern of responding revealed that adults more often
correctly identified the good social partner (22 out of 23 participants selected the correct
person) than did 4-year-olds (8 out of 26 participants selected the correct person) as
knowing more.
Furthermore, the data indicated that children had a bias to attend to one social
partner over the other when answering the “who knows more” question. A chi-squared
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test of association indicated that 4-year-olds were more likely to correctly identify the
good social partner as the one who “knew more” when that partner was Teddi
(χ² (1) 7.22, p = .007). Eighteen children who answered the question chose Teddi, with
eight correctly choosing Teddi when she was the good social partner. Not a single child
chose Megan regardless of whether she played the good social partner. Because this
question was asked directly before the word learning phase, this may have meant that
children were thinking about the wrong person (the person with whom they identified as
“knowing more”) when they learned words.
The 4-year-olds’ pattern of responses to the “who knows more” question provided
an initial indicator that perhaps a social partner bias (Teddi preferred more than Megan)
or context (toy animals preferred more than balloons) bias had emerged within the 4year-old test group. In order to further determine the presence of such a bias, a chi
squared test of association for adult and child’s identification of who he/she “would
rather play with” was conducted. The chi-squared analysis indicated that there was a
relationship between age and preferred experimenter, χ² (1) = 5.25, p = .02. Children
choose Teddi as a playmate 20 out of 23 times while adults chose Teddi 13 out of 23
times; this analysis supports the existence of a bias for 4-year-olds.
General Discussion
The current study investigated whether children and adults are sensitive to the
Gricean maxims of quality and relation when determining the reliability of an individual
as an information source in the context of word learning. The findings of this research
suggest that adults are sensitive to violations of the conversational maxims of both
quality and relation and rely on this sensitivity when determining from whom to receive
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new information. Adults not only identified an individual who followed these maxims as
someone who “knows more” but also applied this knowledge when they were given
conflicting information about the name of an object from an individual who followed the
conversational maxim and an individual who disregarded the maxim. Furthermore, this
study demonstrates that preschool age children are not reliably sensitive to violations of
the conversational maxims of quality and relation. Four-year-olds neither reliably
identified an individual who followed the conversational maxim of quality or relation as
“knowing more” nor predominately believed that individual’s label for an object when
provided with conflicting information from her and a social partner who violated the
conversational maxim addressed.
Four-year-olds poor performance in selecting the object in that the social partner
who followed the conversation maxim of quality or relation (the “good” social partner)
had provided the label was contrary to what we hypothesized. Our hypothesis was rooted
in past research that suggests that children use aspects of an informant when selecting an
information source. Research has indicated that preschoolers use an informant’s
admission of ignorance, past mislabeling, and hesitancy to guide their beliefs about the
reliability of the information source (Harris, 2007; Koenig et al., 2004; Pasquini et al.,
2007; Sabbagh & Baldwin, 2001). Because children do use such aspects of an
information source, it seems likely that they would use information related to
conversational maxims. The fact that 4-year-olds did not at least use the maxim of quality
when determining the reliability of an information source in our study is particularly
striking because such a violation closely resembles mislabeling violations in which past
research has suggested children are sensitive.
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One possibility for the surprising findings in our study in light of past research is
that children in our study may not have even been recognizing the difference between the
social partners in conversational ability so they could not apply this knowledge during the
word learning trials. This is suggested by 4-year-olds’ performance on the “who knows
more question.” Children were more likely to select Teddi as “knowing more” when she
played the good social partner than Megan when she played the good social partner.
Because past research has indicated that children at this age are most sensitive to the
maxims directly addressed in this study— relation and quality (Eskritt, et al., 2008), the
pattern of responses of the 4-year-olds suggests that there was an experimenter or context
bias (the source of the bias cannot be determined because Megan was always featured in
the balloon context and Teddi was always featured in the toy animal context). Since the
“who knows more” question was asked directly before the word learning trials, it might
be that this question focused the child’s attention on the wrong person, the person whom
they preferred more. Adding further validation to the possibility of an experimenter bias
is that 4-year-olds were more likely to choose Teddi than Megan when asked “Who
would you rather play with?”
A possible reason for the bias in answering the “who knows more” question is
that children in our study were not able to detect and keep track of the violations of the
maxims of relation and quality, and therefore, simply chose the social partner that they
preferred more when answering. Future studies will seek to make violations clearer and
will seek to provide more similar contexts featuring the example of the good and poor
social partners; this will help to determine if making this violation more apparent will
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have an effect on children’s ability to differentiate ability between the two information
sources.
In sum, the present results suggest that 4-year-olds’ preference for one of the
social partners in our study might have overridden their ability to differentiate between
social partners who violate the conversational maxims of quality and relation and those
who adhere to them. Future research is needed to investigate whether 4-year-olds use the
conversational maxims of quality and relation at all to judge the information that a source
provides. In order to answer this question, new videos should be designed that eliminate
social partner or context bias.
There is also a need to further investigate whether children simply are not able to
complete the task presented in the study because of age. Perhaps, children may be able to
recognize violations of the Gricean maxims of quality and relation in particular situations
between the ages of three to five (Eskritt, et al., 2008), but that they may not apply this
knowledge to choosing an information source for word learning until later. The current
study shows that by the time an individual reaches adulthood, he/she considers maxim
violations; this difference suggests that 4-year-olds may not be successful simply because
of age. The difference in performance between 4-year-olds and adults suggests that
sensitivity to violations of Gricean maxims is something that children eventually figure
out. A future direction of the study would be to determine the age at which children
develop this ability to differentiate reliable information sources based strictly on
violations of conversational cues.
Discovering the age at which children develop the ability to both establish a
source as a “good” or “bad” conversational partner and then to apply this knowledge to
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evaluate the quality of information from that source has many practical implications for
children’s learning. Recent research in the education field supports the theory that
children consider cues related to the ability of conversational partners when learning in
the school context. Research out of the educational field by Pianta, Belsky, Houts, and
Morrison (2007) suggests that children’s emotional engagement predicts their willingness
to learn in the classroom. Specifically, this research indicates that young children’s
learning is affected by the quality of their interactions. Therefore, if children evaluate
social partners in the ways indirectly suggested by the findings in Pianta, Belsky, Houts,
and Morrison’s research, determining the age at which children begin to evaluate the
quality of interactions based on an information source’s ability to follow social
conventions would have many implications for how teachers conduct themselves in the
classroom.
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References
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Clément, F., Koenig, M., & Harris, P. (2004). The ontogenesis of trust. Mind
&Language. 19; 360-379.
Eskritt, M., Whalen, J.& Lee, K. (2008). Preschoolers can recognize violations of
Gricean maxims. Britist Journal of Developmental Psychology, 26, 435-443.
Grice, H.P., (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J.L. Morgan (Eds.), Speech
acts, syntax and semantics3 (pp. 113-128). New York: Academic Press.
Harris, P.L. (2007). Trust. [Electronic Version]. 10; 135-138.
Koenig, M.A. & Harris, P.L. (2005). Preschoolers mistrust ignorant and inaccurate
speakers. Child Development. 76; 1261-1277.
Koening, M.A., Clement, F., & Harris, P.L. (2004). Trust in testimony: children’s use of t
true false statements. Psychological Sciences. 15; 694- 698.
Pasquini, E.S., Corriveau, K.H., Koenig, M., Harris, P. (2007). Preschoolers monitor
the relative accuracy of informants. Developmental Psychology. 43; 1216-1226.
Pianta, R.C., Belsky, J., Houts, R., & Morrison, F. (2007). Opportunities to learn in
America’s elementary classroom. Science Magazine. 315; 1795-1796.
Spelke, E.S. & Kinzler, K.D. (2007) Core Knowledge. Developmental Science, 10; 8996.
Sabbagh, M.A. & Baldwin, D.A. (2001). Learning words from knowledgeable versus
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Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
Figure Caption
Table 1. The video scripts for each condition and each social partner.
Figure 1. The novel objects pairs with the accompanying label for each.
Figure 2. A graph of the Mean Performance for Age and Condition.
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Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
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Quality Condition Scripts:
Neutral
Do you want to play a game
with me?
“How many balloons do
you have there?
“What color is that one?”
(pointing to a blue balloon)
Neutral
Do you want to play a game
with me?
“What do you want to do
with the animals?”
“What animal is that one?”
(pointing to a pig)
Meg Good
Meg Bad
Sure
Sure
“I have 2 balloons here.”
“I have 60 balloons here.”
“That one is blue.”
“That one is white.”
Teddi Good
Teddi Bad
Sure
Sure
“Let’s put them in this
box.” (pointing to a box)
“That is a pig.”
“Let’s put them in this cup.”
(pointing to a box)
“That is a duck.”
Relation Condition Scripts:
Neutral
Do you want to play a game
with me?
“How do you want to play
with the balloons?’
“I don’t like to play with
red balloons”
Neutral
Do you want to play a game
with me?
“What do you know about
these animals?”
“I don’t like to play with
toy snakes?”
Meg Good
Meg Bad
Sure
Sure
“Well, I can throw them to
you and you can throw
them back.”
How about green balloons?
Do you like to play with
green balloons?
“Yes, I can use a fork and a
spoon to eat my spaghetti.”
Teddi Good
Teddi Bad
“How about red balloons?
Do you like to play with red
balloons?”
Sure
Sure
“Well, I know that a pig
says oink and a duck says
quack.”
“What about toy dogs? Do
you like to play with toy
dogs?”
“Yes, I can use a bat and a
ball to play baseball.”
“What about toy snakes?
Do you like to play with toy
snakes?”
Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
Glap
vs.
Glap
Teg
vs.
Teg
Dake
vs.
Dake
Trome
vs.
Trome
23
Conversation Cues & Selection of Information Sources
Mean # Correct
Mean Perfomance For Age and Condition
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
3.833
3.636
quality
relation
2.25
2.25
quality
relaiton
Adults
4 Year Olds
Age X Condition
24