Journal Articles

1. Grosse, G; Moll, H; Tomasello, M, 21-Month-olds understand the cooperative logic of requests, Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 42 no. 12 (December, 2010), pp. 3377-3383 [doi].
   (last updated on 2024/08/25)

   Abstract:
   Human communication rests on a basic assumption of partner cooperativeness, including even requesting. In the current study, an adult made an ambiguous request for an object to 21-month-old infants, with one potential referent being right in front of her and the other being across the room. In a normal situation (Hands-Free), infants interpreted the request as referring to the distant object-the one the adult needed help fetching. In contrast, in a situation in which the adult was constrained so that fetching either object herself would be difficult (Hands-Occupied), infants selected the far object much less often. These results suggest that infants just beginning to acquire language already understand something of the cooperative logic of requests. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.