YOUNG CHILDRENS ABILITY TO DETECT AMBIGUITY IN DESCRIPTIONS OF LOCATION

Three experiments investigated 3- to 5-year-olds' ability to detect am biguity in descriptions of location. In Experiments 1 and 2, children received ambiguous (e.g., ''it's in one of the bags'') and nonambiguou s (e.g., ''it's in the bag by the chair'') descriptions. Four- and 5-y ear-olds' search latencies were longer for ambiguous than for nonambig uous descriptions, but 3-year-olds' latencies were longer for nonambig uous than for ambiguous descriptions. Experiment 3 revealed no differe nce in 3-year-olds' search latencies for ambiguous and nonambiguous de scriptions when amount of spatial information in directions was equate d. Five-year-olds' latencies again were longer for ambiguous than for nonambiguous descriptions. Discussion focuses on possible developmenta l factors contributing to changes in children's ability to detect spat ial ambiguity.