YOUNG CHILDRENS ATTRIBUTIONS OF KNOWLEDGE WHEN SPEAKER INTENT AND LISTENER ACCESS CONFLICT

Three experiments assessed children's attributions of knowledge to a l istener when a speaker's intent for a message to be heard either confl icted or coincided with a listener's perceptual access to the message. When speaker intent and listener access coincided, both 3-year-olds a nd 5-year-olds correctly attributed knowledge to the listener. However , performance between the two groups diverged when access and intent c onflicted, with only 5-year-olds consistently attributing knowledge on the basis of access alone. These results suggest that 3-year-olds do nor yet fully distinguish the intent to inform from the actual informa tiveness of a message. For older children, the intent to be heard is s econdary to perceptual access in judgments of listener comprehension b ecause listener access to a message is regarded as a necessary precond ition for being informed by that message.