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| Publications of Michael Tomasello :chronological alphabetical combined listing:
%% Books
@book{fds352651,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The gestural communication of apes and monkeys},
Pages = {1-256},
Year = {2020},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9780805853650},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003064541},
Abstract = {The Gestural Communication of Apes and Monkeys is an
intriguing compilation of naturalistic and experimental
research conducted over the course of 20 years on gestural
communication in primates, as well as a comparison to what
is known about the vocal communication of nonhuman primates.
The editors also make systematic comparisons to the gestural
communication of prelinguistic and just-linguistic human
children. An enlightening exploration unfolds into what may
represent the starting point for the evolution of human
communication and language. This especially significant read
is organized into nine chapters that discuss: *the gestural
repertoire of chimpanzees; *gestures in orangutans, subadult
gorillas, and siamangs; *gestural communication in Barbary
macaques; and *a comparison of the gestures of apes and
monkeys. This book will appeal to psychologists,
anthropologists, and linguists interested in the
evolutionary origins of language and/or gestures, as well as
to all primatologists. A CD insert offers video of gestures
for each of the species.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781003064541},
Key = {fds352651}
}
@book{fds359683,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Foreword},
Volume = {27},
Pages = {VII-IX},
Year = {2020},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9789027261007},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/tilar.27.for},
Doi = {10.1075/tilar.27.for},
Key = {fds359683}
}
@book{fds351574,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction: A cognitive-functional perspective on language
structure},
Volume = {1},
Pages = {vii-xxiii},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780585115191},
Key = {fds351574}
}
@book{fds351575,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional
approaches to language structure},
Volume = {1},
Pages = {1-292},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780585115191},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315085678},
Abstract = {This book, which gathers in one place the theories of 10
leading cognitive and functional linguists, represents a new
approach that may define the next era in the history of
psychology: It promises to give psychologists a new
appreciation of what this variety of linguistics can offer
their study of language and communication. In addition, it
provides cognitive-functional linguists new models for
presenting their work to audiences outside the boundaries of
traditional linguistics. Thus, it serves as an excellent
text for courses in psycholinguistics, and appeal to
students and researchers in cognitive science and functional
linguistics.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781315085678},
Key = {fds351575}
}
@book{fds320791,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {A Natural History of Human Morality},
Pages = {180 pages},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780674088641},
Abstract = {Michael Tomasello offers the most detailed account to date
of the evolution of human moral psychology.},
Key = {fds320791}
}
@book{fds321686,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {A Natural History of Human Thinking},
Pages = {1-192},
Publisher = {Harvard University Press},
Year = {2014},
Month = {February},
ISBN = {9780674724778},
Abstract = {Tool-making or culture, language or religious belief: ever
since Darwin, thinkers have struggled to identify what
fundamentally differentiates human beings from other
animals. In this much-anticipated book, Michael Tomasello
weaves his twenty years of comparative studies of humans and
great apes into a compelling argument that cooperative
social interaction is the key to our cognitive uniqueness.
Once our ancestors learned to put their heads together with
others to pursue shared goals, humankind was on an
evolutionary path all its own. Tomasello argues that our
prehuman ancestors, like today’s great apes, were social
beings who could solve problems by thinking. But they were
almost entirely competitive, aiming only at their individual
goals. As ecological changes forced them into more
cooperative living arrangements, early humans had to
coordinate their actions and communicate their thoughts with
collaborative partners. Tomasello’s “shared
intentionality hypothesis” captures how these more
socially complex forms of life led to more conceptually
complex forms of thinking. In order to survive, humans had
to learn to see the world from multiple social perspectives,
to draw socially recursive inferences, and to monitor their
own thinking via the normative standards of the group. Even
language and culture arose from the preexisting need to work
together. What differentiates us most from other great apes,
Tomasello proposes, are the new forms of thinking engendered
by our new forms of collaborative and communicative
interaction. A Natural History of Human Thinking is the most
detailed scientific analysis to date of the connection
between human sociality and cognition.},
Key = {fds321686}
}
@book{fds351638,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction to the classic edition},
Pages = {vii-xiii},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848725911},
Key = {fds351638}
}
@book{fds351639,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction: A cognitive-functional perspective on
language structure},
Pages = {xiv-xxix},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848725911},
Key = {fds351639}
}
@book{fds351640,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional
approaches to language structure, volume ii classic
edition},
Pages = {1-278},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848725935},
Abstract = {From the point of view of psychology and cognitive science,
much of modern linguistics is too formal and mathematical to
be of much use. The New Psychology of Language volumes broke
new ground by introducing functional and cognitive
approaches to language structure in terms already familiar
to psychologists, thus defining the next era in the
scientific study of language. The Classic Edition volumes
re-introduce some of the most important cognitive and
functional linguists working in the field. They include a
new introduction by Michael Tomasello in which he reviews
what has changed since the volumes were first published and
highlights the fundamental insights of the original authors.
The New Psychology of Language volumes are a must-read for
anyone interested in understanding how cognitive and
functional linguistics has become the thriving perspective
on the scientific study of language that it is
today.},
Key = {fds351640}
}
@book{fds351641,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction to the classic edition},
Pages = {vii-xiii},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848725935},
Key = {fds351641}
}
@book{fds351642,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional
approaches to language structure, volume I classic
edition},
Pages = {1-268},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848725911},
Abstract = {From the point of view of psychology and cognitive science,
much of modern linguistics is too formal and mathematical to
be of much use. The New Psychology of Language volumes broke
new ground by introducing functional and cognitive
approaches to language structure in terms already familiar
to psychologists, thus defining the next era in the
scientific study of language. The Classic Edition volumes
re-introduce some of the most important cognitive and
functional linguists working in the field. They include a
new introduction by Michael Tomasello in which he reviews
what has changed since the volumes first published and
highlights the fundamental insights of the original authors.
The New Psychology of Language volumes are a must-read for
anyone interested in understanding how cognitive and
functional linguistics has become the thriving perspective
on the scientific study of language that it is
today.},
Key = {fds351642}
}
@book{fds351643,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction: Some surprises for psychologists},
Pages = {1-14},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848725935},
Key = {fds351643}
}
@book{fds351911,
Author = {Slobin, DI and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction},
Pages = {xv-xxiv},
Year = {2004},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9781410611192},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781410611192},
Doi = {10.4324/9781410611192},
Key = {fds351911}
}
%% Book Sections/Chapters
@misc{fds371506,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Having Intentions, Understanding Intentions, and
Understanding Communicative Intentions},
Pages = {63-75},
Booktitle = {Developing Theories of Intention: Social Understanding and
Self-Control},
Year = {2023},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780805831412},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003417927-5},
Abstract = {This chapter looks at a major cause and a major consequence
of the 9-month social-cognitive revolution; and both of
these also concern infant intentionality. It argues that
young children’s understanding of other persons as
intentional agents results in large part from newly emerging
forms of intentionality in their own sensory-motor actions.
The chapter explores young children’s understanding of a
special type of intention that emerges directly on the heels
of the 9-month revolution, namely, communicative intentions.
Intentional agents have goals and make active choices among
behavioral means for attaining those goals. Important,
intentional agents also make active choices about what they
pay attention to in pursuing those goals. ntentional agents
have goals and make active choices among behavioral means
for attaining those goals. Important, intentional agents
also make active choices about what they pay attention to in
pursuing those goals.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781003417927-5},
Key = {fds371506}
}
@misc{fds368121,
Author = {Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {THE EARLY ONTOGENY OF HUMAN COOPERATION AND
MORALITY},
Pages = {200-216},
Booktitle = {Handbook of Moral Development, Third Edition},
Year = {2022},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780367497569},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003047247-16},
Abstract = {In this chapter, we consider children’s moral development
from an evolutionary perspective. We propose that human
morality arose evolutionarily as a set of skills and motives
for cooperating with others. Following recent accounts by
Tomasello and colleagues of a two-step sequence in the
evolution of human cooperation and morality, we propose and
review empirical evidence in support of a two-step sequence
in the ontogeny of human cooperation and morality: first, a
second-personal morality that emerges in infancy and
toddlerhood, in which children are sympathetic or fair to
particular others, and second, a norm-based morality that
emerges during the preschool years, in which children follow
and enforce group-wide social norms. These prosocial and
moral tendencies compete throughout ontogeny with
children’s selfish tendencies and are modified
significantly by socialization and culture.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781003047247-16},
Key = {fds368121}
}
@misc{fds358297,
Author = {Mannle, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Fathers, siblings, and the bridge hypothesis},
Pages = {23-41},
Booktitle = {Children’s Language: Volume 6},
Year = {2021},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780898597608},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315792668-2},
Abstract = {The underlying assumption of the Bridge Hypothesis-which is
not shared by all developmental psycholinguists-is that
communication pressure is beneficial to the child’s
development of communicative competence, including the
acquisition of linguistic skills. This chapter reviews the
existing research on fathers’ and siblings’ linguistic
interactions with young children, including some recent
research from our own laboratory. In the traditional family
situation, fathers spend significantly less time than
mothers interacting with their children, and so presumably
are less familiar with the everyday behavioral routines that
are so important for early language acquisition. As with
fathers, the research on siblings’ communicative
interactions with young children has just begun. Most of the
relevant research on sibling speech to infants is concerned
with structural/linguistic features, and it is thus unclear
in this case as well whether siblings do in fact place
communication pressure on the language learning child and
thereby act as a linguistic bridge.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781315792668-2},
Key = {fds358297}
}
@misc{fds353328,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Why don't apes point?},
Pages = {506-524},
Booktitle = {Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and
Interaction},
Year = {2020},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9781845203948},
Key = {fds353328}
}
@misc{fds352650,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Introduction: Intentional communication in nonhuman
primates},
Pages = {1-15},
Booktitle = {The Gestural Communication of Apes and Monkeys},
Year = {2020},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9780805853650},
Key = {fds352650}
}
@misc{fds352649,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Ape gestures and the origins of language},
Pages = {221-239},
Booktitle = {The Gestural Communication of Apes and Monkeys},
Year = {2020},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9780805853650},
Key = {fds352649}
}
@misc{fds352648,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The gestural repertoire of chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes)},
Pages = {17-39},
Booktitle = {The Gestural Communication of Apes and Monkeys},
Year = {2020},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9780805853650},
Key = {fds352648}
}
@misc{fds352652,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Comparing the gestures of apes and monkeys},
Pages = {197-220},
Booktitle = {The Gestural Communication of Apes and Monkeys},
Year = {2020},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9780805853650},
Key = {fds352652}
}
@misc{fds351572,
Author = {Jensen, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Punishment},
Pages = {214-221},
Booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior},
Year = {2019},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780128132517},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809633-8.01093-1},
Abstract = {Animals can use punishment as a means to change the behavior
of others. Punishment can be done for selfish ends with no
regard for how the target of the act is affected. On the
other extreme, it can benefit others in a society and be
motivated by its effects on others. Altruistic punishment,
third-party punishment, and norm enforcement are special
cases of punishment that can maintain cooperation, and these
may not have analogs in animals other than humans. More
socially sophisticated forms of punishment will require more
flexible and complex cognitive processes. Of particular
interest are social (other-regarding) preferences, since
these may have allowed the evolution of the large-scale
non-kin cooperation seen only in humans. However, little is
known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying punishment
in other animals.},
Doi = {10.1016/B978-0-12-809633-8.01093-1},
Key = {fds351572}
}
@misc{fds372674,
Author = {Jensen, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Punishment},
Volume = {1},
Pages = {V1-214-V1-219},
Booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Second Edition: Volume
1-5},
Year = {2019},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780128132517},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809633-8.01093-1},
Abstract = {Animals can use punishment as a means to change the behavior
of others. Punishment can be done for selfish ends with no
regard for how the target of the act is affected. On the
other extreme, it can benefit others in a society and be
motivated by its effects on others. Altruistic punishment,
third-party punishment, and norm enforcement are special
cases of punishment that can maintain cooperation, and these
may not have analogs in animals other than humans. More
socially sophisticated forms of punishment will require more
flexible and complex cognitive processes. Of particular
interest are social (other-regarding) preferences, since
these may have allowed the evolution of the large-scale
non-kin cooperation seen only in humans. However, little is
known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying punishment
in other animals.},
Doi = {10.1016/B978-0-12-809633-8.01093-1},
Key = {fds372674}
}
@misc{fds349846,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {What did we learn from theape language studies?},
Pages = {95-104},
Booktitle = {Bonobos: Unique in Mind, Brain, and Behavior},
Year = {2018},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780198728511},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198728511.003.0007},
Abstract = {The ‘ape language’ studies have come and gone, with
wildly divergent claims about what they have shown. Without
question, the most sophisticated skills have been displayed
by Kanzi, a male bonobo exposed from youth to a human-like
communicative system. This chapter attempts to assess, in an
objective a manner as possible, the nature of the
communicative skills that Kanzi and other great apes
acquired during the various ape language projects. The
overall conclusion is that bonobos and other apes possess
most of the requisite cognitive skills for something like a
human language, including such things as basic symbol
learning, categorization, sequential (statistical) learning,
etc. What they lack are the skills and motivations of shared
intentionality-such things as joint attention,
perspective-taking and cooperative motives- for adjusting
their communicative acts for others pragmatically, or for
learning symbols whose main function is pragmatic.},
Doi = {10.1093/oso/9780198728511.003.0007},
Key = {fds349846}
}
@misc{fds361197,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M and Striano, T},
Title = {How children turn objects into symbols: A cultural learning
account},
Pages = {69-97},
Booktitle = {Symbol Use and Symbolic Representation: Developmental and
Comparative Perspectives},
Year = {2017},
Month = {September},
ISBN = {9780805845976},
Key = {fds361197}
}
@misc{fds365126,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Middle Step: Joint Intentionality as a Human-Unique Form
of Second-Personal Engagement},
Pages = {433-446},
Booktitle = {The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781138783638},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315768571-41},
Abstract = {The crucial middle step consists in second-personal
engagement with engagement others. In this chapter, the
authors present face-to-face interactions joint
intentionality. On the other hand there are capacities for
acting collectively within a social group or culture,
relying on an understanding and sensitivity to
supra-individual constructions as cultural conventions,
norms, and institutional reality. Much attention has been
paid to processes of collective intentionality, often under
the rubric of “social ontology”. While the social life
of even our nearest living relatives, chimpanzees and
bonobos is characterized by individual intentions, humans
routinely coordinate with others to form intricate modes of
collective intentions and enduring cultural practices.
Chimpanzees have robust and selective intentions to behave
cooperatively toward their bond partners, including a
tendency to preferentially trust those partners. The authors
discuss how early humans evolved new cognitive adaptations,
most importantly and fundamentally the dual-level cognitive
structure of joint intentionality.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781315768571-41},
Key = {fds365126}
}
@misc{fds366595,
Author = {Engelmann, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Prosociality and morality in children and
chimpanzees},
Pages = {15-32},
Booktitle = {New Perspectives on Moral Development},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781138188013},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315642758},
Abstract = {The modern study of moral development began with Piaget’s
(1932) The Moral Judgment of the Child, which although
originally published in the 1930s only became
internationally known in the 1960s through its influence on
Kohlberg’s theory (e.g. Kohlberg, 1981). Piaget and
Kohlberg were both explicit that they were not studying
children’s moral motivations or behaviour, but only their
judgements, indeed typically judgements about other
people’s interactions from a third-party perspective. Much
of the work in social domain theory championed by Turiel
(1983), though coming from a somewhat different theoretical
perspective, also focused on children’s judgements about
third parties’ interactions.},
Doi = {10.4324/9781315642758},
Key = {fds366595}
}
@misc{fds359905,
Author = {Quick, AE and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Mixed NPs in German-English and German-Russian bilingual
children},
Pages = {127-146},
Booktitle = {Cognitive Perspectives on Bilingualism},
Year = {2016},
Month = {April},
ISBN = {9781614515852},
Abstract = {Both cross-linguistic priming methodologies and research on
codemixed utterances have been concerned with the nature of
the underlying syntactic representations of bilinguals. The
present paper investigated code-mixing at the
morphosyntactic level (NP) by comparing German-English (G-E)
and German- Russian (G-R) bilingual children between the
ages of 3;6 and 5;6. Using a language priming paradigm and a
monolingual interlocutor in each language, we attempted to
elicit mixed NPs from these children. Results showed that
G-E bilingual children produced mixed NPs significantly more
often than G-R bilinguals, providing support for the
importance of structural similarity in this type of mixing.
A second finding was that children who were reported as
code-mixing at home were significantly more likely to
provide answers while children who did not code-mix remained
silent. Explanations in terms of individual differences
and/or balanced competence are discussed.},
Key = {fds359905}
}
@misc{fds351595,
Author = {Matthews, D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Grammar},
Pages = {38-50},
Booktitle = {The Curated Reference Collection in Neuroscience and
Biobehavioral Psychology},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780128093245},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.05819-3},
Abstract = {To acquire competence with a natural language, young
children must master the grammatical constructions of their
language(s). In this article we outline the main theoretical
issues in the field and trace the developmental path
children follow from talking in single-unit
“holophrases” to using complex, abstract constructions.
We describe the development of children’s initial skills
with word order, case marking, and morphology as abstract
elements in early constructions, and we discuss the level of
abstraction characteristic of young children’s grammatical
constructions at different stages of development and in some
different languages of the world. Finally, we consider the
learning processes that enable young children both to
acquire and to abstract across grammatical
constructions.},
Doi = {10.1016/B978-0-12-809324-5.05819-3},
Key = {fds351595}
}
@misc{fds351681,
Author = {Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The early ontogeny of human cooperation and
morality},
Pages = {279-298},
Booktitle = {Handbook of Moral Development, Second Edition},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9781848729599},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203581957},
Abstract = {The seminal work in the modern study of children’s moral
development is Piaget’s (1932/1997) The Moral Judgment of
the Child. As is well known, Piaget claimed that before the
age of 8 or 9 years children make moral judgments based only
on a respect for authority and the social norms emanating
from this authority-and so they are not really autonomous
moral agents. But, as is also well known, Piaget focused
exclusively on the explicit moral judgments that children
were capable of formulating in language. Kohlberg’s
extension of Piaget’s framework (e.g., Colby & Kohlberg,
1987; Kohlberg, 1969, 1976) also asked children to express
their reasoned moral judgments linguistically, and also
found that preschool children were essentially premoral
(i.e., preconventional).},
Doi = {10.4324/9780203581957},
Key = {fds351681}
}
@misc{fds351692,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cognitive Linguistics and First Language
Acquisition},
Booktitle = {The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
ISBN = {9780199738632},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199738632.013.0041},
Abstract = {This article reviews some of the best-known and most
interesting work on language acquisition from within the
framework of functional-cognitive linguistics, particularly
those on meaning and conceptualization as well as usage and
grammar (grammatical constructions). Although the term is
often used more narrowly, the article calls this general
theoretical approach "usage-based" to emphasize the
assumption common to all functional and cognitive approaches
that linguistic structure emerges from use, both
historically and ontogenetically. This is as opposed to the
dominant view in the field of language acquisition today in
which "core" grammatical competence is innately given, and
all that develops is peripheral skills involving the
lexicon, pragmatics, information processing, and the like.
The article discusses meaning and conceptualization in child
language, focusing on image schemas and word meanings as
well as social cognition, perspective-taking, and culture.
It also considers usage and grammar in child language,
including usage-based syntax.},
Doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199738632.013.0041},
Key = {fds351692}
}
@misc{fds351693,
Author = {Wyman, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The ontogenetic origins of human cooperation},
Booktitle = {Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
ISBN = {9780198568308},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568308.013.0017},
Abstract = {This article suggests that the ontogenesis of shared
intentionality depends on the developmentally primitive
phenomenon of 'joint attention'. This is the ability of the
infant to understand that they and other individuals can
attend to the same object and each other's attention
simultaneously and provides a shared, interpersonal frame in
which young infants can share experience with others. This
article compares the skills and motivations involved in
shared intentionality between humans and chimpanzees. It
also emphasises a marked difference in their joint attention
abilities. It suggests that this may explain various
differences in social-cognitive skills between the two
species, and proposes that the phylogenesis of joint
attention may account for the evolution of complex forms of
cooperation and uniquely human cultural practices.},
Doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568308.013.0017},
Key = {fds351693}
}
@misc{fds351706,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Do chimpanzees know what others see-or only what they are
looking at?},
Booktitle = {Rational Animals?},
Year = {2012},
Month = {March},
ISBN = {9780198528272},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528272.003.0017},
Abstract = {This chapter examines the distinction between two approaches
in interpreting the behaviour in non-human animals. It
explains the 'boosters' interpret behaviour in
psychologically rich ways while 'scoffers' prefer
psychologically lean interpretations. It compares richer and
leaner interpretations of recent data from four experimental
paradigms concerning whether chimpanzees know what others
can or cannot see and argues that the 'booster' hypothesis
is better supported by the experimental results.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528272.003.0017},
Key = {fds351706}
}
@misc{fds351707,
Author = {Lohmann, H and Tomasello, M and Meyer, S},
Title = {Linguistic Communication and Social Understanding},
Booktitle = {Why Language Matters for Theory of Mind},
Year = {2012},
Month = {March},
ISBN = {9780195159912},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159912.003.0012},
Abstract = {This chapter explores the early stages of pragmatic language
acquisition before taking up the issue of syntax and
semantics. It suggests that the relation between language
and theory of mind is different depending on which aspect of
social understanding is at issue. In particular, it argues
that an appreciation of other persons as intentional
agents-the first level of social understanding-is a
prerequisite for language acquisition. The chapter presents
evidence from a training study aimed at developing
false-belief reasoning to show that both conversation about
deceptive objects and training on the syntax of
complementation (in the absence of deceptive objects)
promote three-year-olds' falsebelief understanding. The
largest training effect occurred in a condition that
combined conversation and complements. The fact that
manipulating the deceptive objects without any conversation
about them was ineffective leads to the conclusion that
language is a necessary condition for children to make
progress in their understanding of false beliefs, lending
support to the claim that language plays a causal role in
the ontogeny of social understanding.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195159912.003.0012},
Key = {fds351707}
}
@misc{fds351710,
Author = {Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Gräfenhain, M and Liebal, K and Liszkowski, U and Moll, H and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M and Warneken,
F and Wyman, E},
Title = {Cultural learning and cultural creation},
Pages = {65-101},
Booktitle = {Social Life and Social Knowledge: Toward a Process Account
of Development},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780203809587},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203809587},
Doi = {10.4324/9780203809587},
Key = {fds351710}
}
@misc{fds375279,
Author = {Ibbotson, P and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Analogical mapping in construction learning},
Pages = {21-22},
Booktitle = {The Routledge Encyclopedia of Second Language
Acquisition},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780415877510},
Key = {fds375279}
}
@misc{fds351752,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Human Culture in Evolutionary Perspective},
Volume = {1},
Booktitle = {Advances in Culture and Psychology},
Year = {2010},
Month = {December},
ISBN = {9780195380392},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380392.003.0001},
Abstract = {Many animal species live in complex social groups, some of
whom transmit information across generations "culturally".
Humans' uniquely cultural way of life began with this kind
of social organization but then acquired novel
characteristics as a result of biological adaptations for
interacting with other persons in species-unique forms of
cooperative activity, including collaborative
problem-solving, cooperative communication, and instructed
learning. These more cooperative, cultural ways of doing
things have as their psychological foundation various skills
and motivations for shared intentionality.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380392.003.0001},
Key = {fds351752}
}
@misc{fds351760,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {What Chimpanzees Know about Seeing, Revisited: An
Explanation of the Third Kind},
Booktitle = {Joint Attention Communication and Other Minds: Issues in
Philosophy and Psychology},
Year = {2010},
Month = {September},
ISBN = {9780199245635},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245635.003.0003},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees follow the gaze of conspecifics and humans
-follow it past distractors and behind barriers, 'check
back' with humans when gaze following does not yield
interesting sights, use gestures appropriately depending on
the visual access of their recipient, and select different
pieces of food depending on whether their competitor has
visual access to them. Taken together, these findings make a
strong case for the hypothesis that chimpanzees have some
understanding of what other individuals can and cannot see.
However, chimpanzees do not seem nearly so skillful in the
Gesture Choice and Object Choice experimental paradigms.
Neither behavioral conditioning nor theory of mind
explanations can account for these results satisfactorily.
Instead this chapter proposes the idea that chimpanzees have
the cognitive skills to recall, represent, categorize, and
reason about the behavior and perception of others, but not
their intentional or mental states, because they do not know
that others have such states since they cannot make a link
to their own. Human beings began their own evolutionary
trajectory with these same skills, but then at some point in
their evolution (probably quite recently) they began to
understand that their own experience could serve as some
kind of model for that of other persons. This allowed for
even better prediction and control of the behavior of others
and better communication and cooperation with them as well,
and so it was an adaptation with immediate adaptive
consequences that ensured its survival.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199245635.003.0003},
Key = {fds351760}
}
@misc{fds351764,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Language Development},
Pages = {239-257},
Booktitle = {The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive
Development, Second edition},
Year = {2010},
Month = {July},
ISBN = {9781405191166},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444325485.ch9},
Doi = {10.1002/9781444325485.ch9},
Key = {fds351764}
}
@misc{fds351769,
Author = {Golinkoff, RM and Hirsh-Pasek, K and Bloom, L and Smith, LB and Woodward, AL and Akhtar, N and Tomasello, M and Hollich,
G},
Title = {Counterpoint commentary},
Booktitle = {Becoming a Word Learner: A Debate on Lexical
Acquisition},
Year = {2010},
Month = {April},
ISBN = {9780195130324},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130324.003.007},
Abstract = {This chapter contains the authors' reactions to the previous
chapters and stresses the similarities and differences
between these theoretical views. It discusses that part of
the debate concerns whether the first words are more like
the indexical signs of most nonhumans or like the symbols of
the human 4-year-old. It argues that although there are
marked contrasts between the views, the work of all the
authors focuses on a central issue: an understanding of how
infants break the language barrier by learning
words.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130324.003.007},
Key = {fds351769}
}
@misc{fds351770,
Author = {Akhtar, N and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Social Nature of Words and Word Learning},
Booktitle = {Becoming a Word Learner: A Debate on Lexical
Acquisition},
Year = {2010},
Month = {April},
ISBN = {9780195130324},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130324.003.005},
Abstract = {This chapter describes research findings from the
social-pragmatic approach. It discusses that Nameera Akhtar
and Michael Tomasello's dramatic findings demonstrate how
word learning occurs in some fairly complex, nonostensive
situations amid the flow of social interaction. It states
that current models of word learning, as suggested by Akhtar
and Tomasello, undervalue the role of social interaction. It
explains that because language has social goals as its
ultimate purpose, social interactions are the outcome of
word learning.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195130324.003.005},
Key = {fds351770}
}
@misc{fds351771,
Author = {Childers, JB and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Are Nouns Easier to Learn Than Verbs? Three Experimental
Studies},
Booktitle = {Action Meets Word: How Children Learn Verbs},
Year = {2010},
Month = {April},
ISBN = {9780195170009},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195170009.003.0013},
Abstract = {A current controversy in the study of word learning is
whether it is conceptually easier to learn nouns as compared
to verbs early in development. This chapter describes three
experiments which address the noun-verb question in
different ways. In the first experiment, researchers asked
how many times (and on how many days) does a 2-yearold need
to hear a word to be able to learn it, and does this differ
for nouns and verbs? This second study investigates
whether-when nouns and verbs are presented in comparable
sentence contexts, controlling the number of exposures, and
presenting a dynamic event in both the noun and verb
conditions-nouns are easier to learn than are verbs. In
Study 3, researchers compared children's ability to learn
intransitive and transitive verbs and their ability to
understand verbs for self-action as opposed to other action,
to determine whether some of these verb and referent types
are learned more quickly than are others.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195170009.003.0013},
Key = {fds351771}
}
@misc{fds351773,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {On the Different Origins of Symbols and Grammar},
Booktitle = {Language Evolution},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780199244843},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244843.003.0006},
Abstract = {This chapter emphasises the role of psychology in language
evolution, but claims that it was the separate evolution of
capacities for using symbols and grammar (that is, syntactic
structure) that distinguishes human communication from the
communication of other primates. It suggests that there was
no specific biological adaptation for linguistic
communication. Rather, there was an adaptation for a broader
kind of complex social cognition that enabled human culture
and, as a special case of that, human symbolic
communication. A crucial part of this adaptation was an
evolved ability to recognise other individuals as
intentional agents whose attention and behaviour could be
shared and manipulated. The capacity for grammar
subsequently developed, and became refined through processes
of grammaticalisation occurring across generations - but
with no additional biological adaptations. In support of
this perspective, psychological data from the study of
language development in young children and from comparisons
with the linguistic, social, and mental capacities of
nonhuman primates are presented. More generally, this
chapter sees the origin and emergence of language as merely
one part in the much larger process of the evolution of
human culture.},
Doi = {10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244843.003.0006},
Key = {fds351773}
}
@misc{fds351774,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Moll, H},
Title = {The gap is social: Human shared intentionality and
culture},
Pages = {331-349},
Booktitle = {Mind the Gap: Tracing the Origins of Human
Universals},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9783642027246},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02725-3_16},
Abstract = {Human beings share many cognitive skills with their nearest
primate relatives, especially those for dealing with the
physical world of objects (and categories and quantities of
objects) in space and their causal interrelations. But
humans are, in addition, biologically adapted for cultural
life in ways that other primates are not. Specifically,
humans have evolved unique motivations and cognitive skills
for understanding other persons as cooperative agents with
whom one can share emotions, experience, and collaborative
actions (shared intentionality). These motivations and
skills first emerge in human ontogeny at around one year of
age, as infants begin to participate with other persons in
various kinds of collaborative and joint attentional
activities. Participation in such activities leads humans to
construct during ontogeny, perspectival and dialogical
cognitive representations.},
Doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-02725-3_16},
Key = {fds351774}
}
@misc{fds351811,
Author = {Jensen, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Punishment},
Volume = {2},
Pages = {800-805},
Booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior},
Year = {2009},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780080453378},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-045337-8.00106-6},
Abstract = {Animals can use punishment as a means to change the behavior
of others. Punishment can be done for selfish ends with no
regard for how the target of the act is affected. On the
other extreme, it can benefit others in a society and be
motivated by its effects on others. Altruistic punishment,
third-party punishment, and norm enforcement are special
cases of punishment that can maintain cooperation, and these
may not have analogs in animals other than humans. More
socially sophisticated forms of punishment will require more
flexible and complex cognitive processes. Of particular
interest are social (other-regarding) preferences, since
these may have allowed the evolution of the large-scale
nonkin cooperation seen only in humans. However, little is
known about the cognitive mechanisms underlying punishment
in other animals.},
Doi = {10.1016/B978-0-08-045337-8.00106-6},
Key = {fds351811}
}
@misc{fds351821,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {First steps toward a usage-based theory of language
acquisition},
Pages = {439-458},
Booktitle = {Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings},
Year = {2008},
Month = {August},
ISBN = {9783110190847},
Key = {fds351821}
}
@misc{fds351834,
Author = {Kruger, AC and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cultural Learning and Learning Culture},
Pages = {353-372},
Booktitle = {The Handbook of Education and Human Development: New Models
of Learning, Teaching and Schooling},
Year = {2008},
Month = {February},
ISBN = {9780631211860},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/b.9780631211860.1998.00018.x},
Abstract = {The universals and cultural variations of human development
have been the focus of fruitful study by anthropologists for
decades. In recent years psychologists also have directed
their attention, long overdue, to understanding development
in cultural context. There are striking differences among
psychologists, however, in the approaches they take to
culture and development. Most markedly, Cole (1989)
distinguishes two very different theoretical perspectives on
cultural psychology and its approach to human development.
In one perspective the focus is on culture as a collective
enterprise (e.g., Gauvain, in press: Shweder, 1990; Super
and Harkness, 1986). There is no need in this view for
focusing on the individual development of individual
children since all important forms of learning are socially
distributed; children simply become more skillful over time
at participating in various collective activities (Lave and
Wenger, 1991). Indeed, in some versions of this more
sociological view of cultural psychology the focus on the
cultural collective is so strong that there is really no
justification for reference to the development of
individuals at all: "Individual, interpersonal, and
sociocultural processes constitute each other and cannot be
separated" (Rogoff, Chavajay, and Matusov, 1993, p.
533).},
Doi = {10.1111/b.9780631211860.1998.00018.x},
Key = {fds351834}
}
@misc{fds351835,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Pages = {477-487},
Booktitle = {A Companion to Cognitive Science},
Year = {2008},
Month = {February},
ISBN = {9780631218517},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781405164535.ch37},
Abstract = {A central goal of cognitive science is to understand how
human beings comprehend, produce, and acquire natural
languages. Throughout the brief history of modern cognitive
science, the linguistic theory that has been most prominent
in this endeavor is generative grammar as espoused by Noam
Chomsky and colleagues. Generative grammar is a theoretical
approach that seeks to describe and explain natural language
in terms of its mathematical form, using formal languages
such as propositional logic and automata theory. The most
fundamental distinction in generative grammar is therefore
the formal distinction between semantics and syntax. The
semantics of a linguistic proposition are the objective
conditions under which it may truthfully be stated, and the
syntax of that proposition is the mathematical structure of
its linguistic elements and relations irrespective of their
semantics.},
Doi = {10.1002/9781405164535.ch37},
Key = {fds351835}
}
@misc{fds351839,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cultural transmission: A view from chimpanzees and human
infants},
Pages = {33-47},
Booktitle = {Cultural Transmission: Psychological, Developmental, Social,
and Methodological Aspects},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780521880435},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511804670.004},
Abstract = {Introduction Primates are highly social beings. They begin
their lives clinging to their mother and nursing, and they
spend their next few months, or even years, still in
proximity to her. Adult primates live in close-knit social
groups, for the most part, in which members individually
recognize one another and form various types of long-term
social relationships (Tomasello & Call, 1994, 1997). As
primates, human beings follow this same pattern, of course,
but they also have unique forms of sociality that may be
characterized as “ultrasocial” or, in more common
parlance, “cultural” (Tomasello, Krüger, & Ratner,
1993). The forms of sociality that are mostly clearly unique
to human beings emerge in their ontogeny at approximately 9
months of age - what I have called the 9-month
social-cognitive revolution (Tomasello, 1995). This is the
age at which infants typically begin to engage in the kinds
of joint-attentional interactions in which they master the
use of cultural artifacts, including tools and language, and
become fully active participants in all types of cultural
rituals, scripts, and games. In this chapter, my goals are
to (1) characterize the primate and human forms of sociality
and cultural transmission, and (2) characterize in more
detail the ontogeny of human cultural propensities.},
Doi = {10.1017/CBO9780511804670.004},
Key = {fds351839}
}
@misc{fds368904,
Author = {Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {CHILDREN’S FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION FROM A USAGE-BASED
PERSPECTIVE1},
Pages = {168-196},
Booktitle = {Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language
Acquisition},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780203938560},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203938560-16},
Abstract = {There are, however, major debates as to what they bring to
this language learning: do they come with innate,
specifically syntactic skills or, rather, with more general
cognitive and interactive skills? In this chapter, we will
argue for the latter and suggest that children’s language
development can be explained in terms of species-specific
learning and intentional communication. We argue that the
child learns language from actual “usage events,” i.e.
from particular utterances in particular contexts, and
builds up increasingly complex and abstract linguistic
representations from these.},
Doi = {10.4324/9780203938560-16},
Key = {fds368904}
}
@misc{fds376753,
Author = {Matthews, D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Grammar},
Volume = {2},
Pages = {V2-38-V2-50},
Booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development,
Three-Volume Set},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780123704603},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-012370877-9.00073-6},
Abstract = {To acquire competence with a natural language, young
children must master the grammatical constructions of their
language(s). In this article we outline the main theoretical
issues in the field and trace the developmental path
children follow from talking in single-unit
‘holophrases’ to using complex, abstract constructions.
We describe the development of children’s initial skills
with word order, case marking, and morphology as abstract
elements in early constructions, and we discuss the level of
abstraction characteristic of young children’s grammatical
constructions at different stages of development and in some
different languages of the world. Finally, we consider the
learning processes that enable young children both to
acquire and to abstract across grammatical
constructions.},
Doi = {10.1016/B978-012370877-9.00073-6},
Key = {fds376753}
}
@misc{fds351988,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Understanding the self as social agent},
Volume = {112},
Pages = {449-460},
Booktitle = {Advances in Psychology},
Year = {1995},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0166-4115(05)80024-X},
Abstract = {This chapter discusses the early development of the
understanding of self as social agent in the human species,
and briefly discusses its ontogenetic and phylogenetic
origins. The chapter outlines the canonical developmental
sequence, focusing especially on the social-cognitive
revolution that occurs at around the infant's first
birthday. The chapter also focuses on the early ontogeny of
self and investigates in more detail the ontogenetic
processes that might lead to the social-cognitive
revolution. The process of understanding one's self as a
social agent involves: 1) an early identification with but
differentiation from others in the first 6–8 months of
life; 2) a clear demonstration of intentionality toward the
world in one's own behavior; 3) the combination of these two
developments leading to an understanding of others as
intentional agents at 9–12 months; and 4) the application
of that understanding when others regard the self. This is
the developmental foundation for the uniquely human version
of self-concept in which the self is understood as a social
agent in the midst of other social agents, all of whom are
regarding one another simultaneously. © 1995 Elsevier
B.V.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0166-4115(05)80024-X},
Key = {fds351988}
}
%% Chapters in Books
@misc{fds366592,
Author = {Sanchez-Amaro, A and Duguid, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Coordination Strategies of Chimpanzees and Children in a
Prisoner's Dilemma},
Journal = {FOLIA PRIMATOLOGICA},
Volume = {89},
Number = {3-4},
Pages = {186-186},
Publisher = {KARGER},
Year = {2018},
Month = {January},
Key = {fds366592}
}
@misc{fds330415,
Author = {Krupenye, C and Kano, F and Hirata, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Great apes anticipate actions based on agents' (false)
beliefs},
Journal = {INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY},
Volume = {51},
Pages = {255-255},
Publisher = {ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD},
Year = {2016},
Month = {July},
Key = {fds330415}
}
@misc{fds367354,
Author = {Bara, BG and Chater, N and Tomasello, M and Varley,
R},
Title = {Symposium Communicative Intentions in the
Mind/Brain},
Journal = {Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics -
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive
Science Society, CogSci 2013},
Pages = {65-66},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780976831891},
Key = {fds367354}
}
@misc{fds367355,
Author = {Call, J and Goldin-Meadow, S and Hobaiter, C and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Language and Gesture Evolution},
Journal = {Cooperative Minds: Social Interaction and Group Dynamics -
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive
Science Society, CogSci 2013},
Pages = {57-58},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780976831891},
Key = {fds367355}
}
@misc{fds320796,
Author = {Wobber, V and Herrmann, E and Hare, B and Wrangham, R and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Species differences in the rate of cognitive ontogeny among
humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos},
Journal = {AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY},
Volume = {144},
Pages = {313-314},
Publisher = {WILEY-BLACKWELL},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
Key = {fds320796}
}
@misc{fds351855,
Author = {Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cooperation and human cognition: the Vygotskian intelligence
hypothesis.},
Journal = {Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Series B, Biological sciences},
Volume = {362},
Number = {1480},
Pages = {639-648},
Year = {2007},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.2000},
Abstract = {Nicholas Humphrey's social intelligence hypothesis proposed
that the major engine of primate cognitive evolution was
social competition. Lev Vygotsky also emphasized the social
dimension of intelligence, but he focused on human primates
and cultural things such as collaboration, communication and
teaching. A reasonable proposal is that primate cognition in
general was driven mainly by social competition, but beyond
that the unique aspects of human cognition were driven by,
or even constituted by, social cooperation. In the present
paper, we provide evidence for this Vygotskian intelligence
hypothesis by comparing the social-cognitive skills of great
apes with those of young human children in several domains
of activity involving cooperation and communication with
others. We argue, finally, that regular participation in
cooperative, cultural interactions during ontogeny leads
children to construct uniquely powerful forms of
perspectival cognitive representation.},
Doi = {10.1098/rstb.2006.2000},
Key = {fds351855}
}
%% Journal Articles
@article{fds374401,
Author = {Winter Née Grocke and P and Tomasello, M},
Title = {From what I want to do to what we decided to do:
5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, honor their agreements
with peers.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {239},
Pages = {105811},
Year = {2024},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105811},
Abstract = {Sometimes we have a personal preference but we agree with
others to follow a different course of action. In this
study, 3- and 5-year-old children (N = 160) expressed a
preference for playing a game one way and were then
confronted with peers who expressed a different preference.
The experimenter then either got the participants to agree
with the peers explicitly or just shrugged her shoulders and
moved on. The children were then left alone to play the game
unobserved. Only the older children stuck to their agreement
to play the game as the peers wished. These results suggest
that by 5 years of age children's sense of commitment to
agreements is strong enough to override their personal
preferences.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105811},
Key = {fds374401}
}
@article{fds374171,
Author = {Katz, T and Kushnir, T and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children are eager to take credit for prosocial acts, and
cost affects this tendency.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {237},
Pages = {105764},
Year = {2024},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105764},
Abstract = {We report two experiments on children's tendency to enhance
their reputations through communicative acts. In the
experiments, 4-year-olds (N = 120) had the opportunity to
inform a social partner that they had helped him in his
absence. In a first experiment, we pitted a prosocial act
("Let's help clean up for Doggie!") against an instrumental
act ("Let's move these out of our way"). Children in the
prosocial condition were quicker to inform their partner of
the act and more likely to protest when another individual
was given credit for it. In a second experiment, we
replicated the prosocial condition but with a new
manipulation: high-cost versus low-cost helping. We
manipulated both the language surrounding cost (i.e., "This
will be pretty tough to clean up" vs. "It will be really
easy to clean this up") and how difficult the task itself
was. As predicted, children in the high-cost condition were
quicker to inform their partner of the act and more likely
to take back credit for it. These results suggest that even
4-year-old children make active attempts to elicit positive
reputational judgments for their prosocial acts, with cost
as a moderating factor.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105764},
Key = {fds374171}
}
@article{fds374236,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Differences in the Social Motivations and Emotions of Humans
and Other Great Apes.},
Journal = {Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)},
Volume = {34},
Number = {4},
Pages = {588-604},
Year = {2023},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-023-09464-0},
Abstract = {Humans share with other mammals and primates many social
motivations and emotions, but they are also much more
cooperative than even their closest primate relatives. Here
I review recent comparative experiments and analyses that
illustrate humans' species-typical social motivations and
emotions for cooperation in comparison with those of other
great apes. These may be classified most generally as (i)
'you > me' (e.g., prosocial sympathy, informative and
pedagogical motives in communication); (ii) 'you = me'
(e.g., feelings of mutual respect, fairness, resentment);
(iii) 'we > me' (e.g., feelings of obligation and guilt);
and (iv) 'WE (in the group) > me' (e.g., in-group
loyalty and conformity to norms, shame, and many in-group
biases). The existence of these species-typical and
species-universal motivations and emotions provides
compelling evidence for the importance of cooperative
activities in the human species.},
Doi = {10.1007/s12110-023-09464-0},
Key = {fds374236}
}
@article{fds374400,
Author = {Vasil, J and Price, D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Thought and language: Effects of group-mindedness on young
children's interpretation of exclusive we.},
Journal = {Child development},
Year = {2023},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14049},
Abstract = {The current study investigated whether age-related changes
in the conceptualization of social groups influences
interpretation of the pronoun we. Sixty-four 2- and
4-year-olds (N = 29 female, 50 White-identifying) viewed
scenarios in which it was ambiguous how many puppets
performed an activity together. When asked who performed the
activity, a speaker puppet responded, "We did!" In one
condition, the speaker was near one and distant from another
puppet, implying a dyadic interpretation of we. In another
condition, the speaker was distant from both, thus pulling
for a group interpretation. In the former condition, 2- and
4-year-olds favored the dyadic interpretation. In the latter
condition, only 4-year-olds favored the group
interpretation. Age-related conceptual development "expands"
the set of conceivable plural person referents.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.14049},
Key = {fds374400}
}
@article{fds373982,
Author = {Wolf, W and Tomasello, M},
Title = {A Shared Intentionality Account of Uniquely Human Social
Bonding.},
Journal = {Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the
Association for Psychological Science},
Pages = {17456916231201795},
Year = {2023},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/17456916231201795},
Abstract = {Many mechanisms of social bonding are common to all
primates, but humans seemingly have developed some that are
unique to the species. These involve various kinds of
interactive experiences-from taking a walk together to
having a conversation-whose common feature is the triadic
sharing of experience. Current theories of social bonding
have no explanation for why humans should have these unique
bonding mechanisms. Here we propose a shared intentionality
account of uniquely human social bonding. Humans evolved to
participate with others in unique forms of cooperative and
communicative activities that both depend on and create
shared experience. Sharing experience in these activities
causes partners to feel closer because it allows them to
assess their partner's cooperative competence and motivation
toward them and because the shared representations created
during such interactions make subsequent cooperative
interactions easier and more effective.},
Doi = {10.1177/17456916231201795},
Key = {fds373982}
}
@article{fds370890,
Author = {Vasil, J and Moore, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Thought and language: association of groupmindedness with
young English-speaking children’s production of
pronouns},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {43},
Number = {5},
Pages = {516-538},
Year = {2023},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01427237231169398},
Abstract = {Shared intentionality theory posits that at age 3, children
expand their conception of plural agency to include 3- or
more-person groups. We sought to determine whether this
conceptual shift is detectable in children’s pronoun use.
We report the results of a series of Bayesian hierarchical
generative models fitted to 479 English-speaking
children’s first-person plural, first-person singular,
second-person, third-person plural, and third-person
singular pronouns. As a proportion of pronouns, children
used more first-person plural pronouns, only, after 3;0
compared to before. Additionally, children used more 1pp.
pronouns when their mothers used more 1pp. pronouns. As a
proportion of total utterances, all pronoun classes were
used more often as children aged. These findings suggest
that a shift in children’s social conceptualizations at
age 3 is reflected in their use of 1pp. pronouns.},
Doi = {10.1177/01427237231169398},
Key = {fds370890}
}
@article{fds370629,
Author = {Benozio, A and House, BR and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Apes reciprocate food positively and negatively.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {290},
Number = {1998},
Pages = {20222541},
Year = {2023},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.2541},
Abstract = {Reciprocal food exchange is widespread in human societies
but not among great apes, who may view food mainly as a
target for competition. Understanding the similarities and
differences between great apes' and humans' willingness to
exchange food is important for our models regarding the
origins of uniquely human forms of cooperation. Here, we
demonstrate in-kind food exchanges in experimental settings
with great apes for the first time. The initial sample
consisted of 13 chimpanzees and 5 bonobos in the control
phases, and the test phases included 10 chimpanzees and 2
bonobos, compared with a sample of 48 human children aged 4
years. First, we replicated prior findings showing no
spontaneous food exchanges in great apes. Second, we
discovered that when apes believe that conspecifics have
'intentionally' transferred food to them, positive
reciprocal food exchanges (food-for-food) are not only
possible but reach the same levels as in young children
(approx. 75-80%). Third, we found that great apes engage in
negative reciprocal food exchanges (no-food for no-food) but
to a lower extent than children. This provides evidence for
reciprocal food exchange in great apes in experimental
settings and suggests that while a potential mechanism of
<i>fostering</i> cooperation (via positive reciprocal
exchanges) may be shared across species, a stabilizing
mechanism (via negative reciprocity) is not.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2022.2541},
Key = {fds370629}
}
@article{fds368903,
Author = {Schäfer, M and B M Haun and D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's consideration of collaboration and merit when
making sharing decisions in private.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {228},
Pages = {105609},
Year = {2023},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105609},
Abstract = {Young children share equally when they acquire resources
through collaboration with a partner, yet it is unclear
whether they do so because in such contexts resources are
encountered as common and distributed in front of the
recipient or because collaboration promotes a sense of
work-based fairness. In the current studies, 5- and
8-year-old children from Germany (N = 193) acquired
resources either by working individually alongside or by
collaborating with a peer. After finding out that the
partner's container was empty, they decided in private
whether they wanted to donate some resources to the peer.
When both partners had worked with equal efforts (Study 1),
children shared more after collaboration than after
individual work. When one partner had worked with much more
effort than the other (Study 2), children shared more with a
harder-working partner than with a less-working partner
independently of whether they had collaborated or worked
individually. Younger children were more generous than older
children, in particular after collaboration. These findings
support the view that collaboration promotes a genuine sense
of fairness in young children, but they also indicate that
merit-based notions of fairness in the context of work may
develop independently of collaboration, at least by the
beginning of middle childhood and in Western
societies.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105609},
Key = {fds368903}
}
@article{fds367773,
Author = {Colle, L and Grosse, G and Behne, T and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Just teasing! - Infants' and toddlers' understanding of
teasing interactions and its effect on social
bonding.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {231},
Pages = {105314},
Year = {2023},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105314},
Abstract = {The current study investigates infants' and toddlers'
understanding of teasing interactions and its effect on
subsequent social interactions. Teasing is a special kind of
social interaction due to its dual nature: It consists of a
slightly provocative contingent action accompanied by
positive ostensive emotional cues. Teasing thus presents an
especially interesting test case to inform us about young
children's abilities to deal with complex social intentions.
In a first experiment, we looked at 9-, 12-, and
18-month-old infants' ability to understand and
differentiate a teasing intention from a trying intention
and a refuse intention. We found that by 12 months of age,
infants react differently (gaze, reach) and by 18 months
they smile more in reaction to the Tease condition. In the
second experiment, we tested 13-, 20- and 30-month-old
children in closely matched purely playful and teasing
situations. We also investigated potential social effects of
teasing interactions on a subsequent affiliation sequence.
Twenty- and 30-month-old children smile more in the Teasing
than in the Play condition. For the 30-month-old toddlers,
additionally, number of laughs is much higher in the Tease
than in the Play condition. No effect on affiliation could
be found. Thus, from very early in development, infants and
toddlers are able to differentiate teasing from
superficially similar but serious behavior and from around
18 months of age they enjoy it more. Infants and toddlers
are able to process a complex social intention like teasing.
Findings are discussed regarding infant and toddler
intention understanding abilities.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105314},
Key = {fds367773}
}
@article{fds362755,
Author = {Hepach, R and Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Gerdemann, SC and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Evidence for a developmental shift in the motivation
underlying helping in early childhood.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {26},
Number = {1},
Pages = {e13253},
Year = {2023},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.13253},
Abstract = {We investigated children's positive emotions as an indicator
of their underlying prosocial motivation. In Study 1, 2-,
and 5-year-old children (N = 64) could either help an
individual or watch as another person provided help.
Following the helping event and using depth sensor imaging,
we measured children's positive emotions through changes in
postural elevation. For 2-year-olds, helping the individual
and watching another person help was equally rewarding;
5-year-olds showed greater postural elevation after actively
helping. In Study 2, 5-year-olds' (N = 59) positive
emotions following helping were greater when an audience was
watching. Together, these results suggest that 2-year-old
children have an intrinsic concern that individuals be
helped whereas 5-year-old children have an additional,
strategic motivation to improve their reputation by
helping.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.13253},
Key = {fds362755}
}
@article{fds365125,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Social cognition and metacognition in great apes: a
theory.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {26},
Number = {1},
Pages = {25-35},
Year = {2023},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01662-0},
Abstract = {Twenty-five years ago, at the founding of this journal,
there existed only a few conflicting findings about great
apes' social-cognitive skills (theory of mind). In the 2 ½
decades since, we have discovered that great apes understand
the goals, intentions, perceptions, and knowledge of others,
and they use this knowledge to their advantage in
competitive interactions. Twenty-five years ago there
existed basically no studies on great apes' metacognitive
skills. In the 2 ½ decades since, we have discovered that
great apes monitor their uncertainty and base their
decisions on that, or else decide to gather more information
to make better decisions. The current paper reviews the past
25 years of research on great ape social cognition and
metacognition and proposes a theory about how the two are
evolutionarily related.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-022-01662-0},
Key = {fds365125}
}
@article{fds371813,
Author = {Wolf, W and Thielhelm, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Five-year-old children show cooperative preferences for
faces with white sclera.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {225},
Pages = {105532},
Year = {2023},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105532},
Abstract = {The cooperative eye hypothesis posits that human eye
morphology evolved to facilitate cooperation. Although it is
known that young children prefer stimuli with eyes that
contain white sclera, it is unknown whether white sclera
influences children's perception of a partner's
cooperativeness specifically. In the current studies, we
used an online methodology to present 5-year-old children
with moving three-dimensional face models in which facial
morphology was manipulated. Children found "alien" faces
with human eyes more cooperative than faces with dark sclera
(Study 2) but not faces with enlarged irises (Study 1). For
more human-like faces (Study 3), children found human eyes
more cooperative than either enlarged irises or dark sclera
and found faces with enlarged irises cuter (but not more
cooperative) than eyes with dark sclera. Together, these
results provide strong support for the cooperative eye
hypothesis.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105532},
Key = {fds371813}
}
@article{fds364183,
Author = {Li, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Disagreement, justification, and equitable moral judgments:
A brief training study.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {223},
Pages = {105494},
Year = {2022},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105494},
Abstract = {Although theorists agree that social interactions play a
major role in moral development, previous research has not
experimentally assessed how specific features of social
interactions affect children's moral judgments and
reasoning. The current study assessed two features:
disagreement and justification. In a brief training phase,
children aged 4-5.5 years (N = 129) discussed simple
moral scenarios about issues of fairness (how to allocate
things between individuals) with a puppet who, in a
between-participants factorial design, either agreed or
disagreed with the children's ideas and either asked or did
not ask the children to justify their ideas. Children then
responded to another set of moral scenarios in a test phase
that was the same for all children. Children in the "agree
and do not justify" baseline condition showed an inflexible
equality bias (preferring only equal allocations regardless
of context), but children who had experiences of
disagreement or experiences of being asked to justify
themselves shifted toward making equitable decisions based
on common ground norms and values. Furthermore, false belief
competence was related to children's decisions and
justifications. These findings support the classic Piagetian
hypothesis that social interactions are a catalyst of
cognitive disequilibrium and moral development.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105494},
Key = {fds364183}
}
@article{fds367772,
Author = {Li, L and Tucker, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children judge defection less negatively when there's
a good justification},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {64},
Year = {2022},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101268},
Abstract = {Morality includes a common ground ranking of values, of
which a central theme is that prosocial actions are more
justifiable than selfish ones. Learning to distinguish
between good versus bad justifications for actions based on
a common ground ranking of values is a key aspect of moral
development. The current study assessed this type of
understanding in young children. In a within-participants
design, young children (N = 64) saw puppets who promised to
show them a cool toy, failed to fulfill their promise, and
then gave either a good (prosocial), bad (selfish), or no
justification for their defection. Children's judgments
about defection following good justifications were less
negative than their judgments about defection following bad
or no justifications, which did not differ. When asked to
justify their judgments, 5-year-olds (but not 3-year-olds)
made more normative or promise-referencing statements when
reasoning about puppets who gave good justifications as
opposed to bad or no justifications. Children's rates of
tattling on, liking, and inviting puppets to play did not
vary by the type of justification that a puppet gave.
Overall, the findings suggest that the capacity to reference
a common ground ranking of values, a key component of human
cooperation and morality, is present in young
children.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2022.101268},
Key = {fds367772}
}
@article{fds362987,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How fairness and dominance guide young children's bargaining
decisions.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {93},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1318-1333},
Year = {2022},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13757},
Abstract = {Reaching agreements in conflicts is an important
developmental challenge. Here, German 5-year-olds
(N = 284, 49% female, mostly White, mixed socioeconomic
backgrounds; data collection: June 2016-November 2017) faced
repeated face-to-face bargaining problems in which they
chose between fair and unfair reward divisions. Across three
studies, children mostly settled on fair divisions. However,
dominant children tended to benefit more from bargaining
outcomes (in Study 1 and 2 but not Study 3) and children
mostly failed to use leverage to enforce fairness.
Communication analyses revealed that children giving orders
to their partner had a bargaining advantage and that
children provided and responded to fairness reasons. These
findings indicate that fairness concerns and dominance are
both key factors that shape young children's bargaining
decisions.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.13757},
Key = {fds362987}
}
@article{fds364336,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The coordination of attention and action in great apes and
humans.},
Journal = {Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Series B, Biological sciences},
Volume = {377},
Number = {1859},
Pages = {20210093},
Year = {2022},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0093},
Abstract = {Great apes can discern what others are attending to and even
direct others' attention to themselves in flexible ways. But
they seemingly do not coordinate their attention with one
another recursively-understanding that the other is
monitoring their attention just as they are monitoring
hers-in acts of joint attention, at least not in the same
way as young human children. Similarly, great apes
collaborate with partners in many flexible ways, but they
seemingly do not coordinate with others to form mutually
obligating joint goals and commitments, nor regulate the
collaboration via acts of intentional communication, at
least not in the same way as young human children. The
hypothesis defended here is that it is precisely in their
capacities to coordinate attention and action with
others-that is, in their capacities for shared
intentionality-that humans are most clearly distinguished
from other great apes. This article is part of the theme
issue 'Revisiting the human 'interaction engine':
comparative approaches to social action coordination'.},
Doi = {10.1098/rstb.2021.0093},
Key = {fds364336}
}
@article{fds362986,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {What is it like to be a chimpanzee?},
Journal = {Synthese},
Volume = {200},
Number = {2},
Year = {2022},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03574-5},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees and humans are close evolutionary relatives who
behave in many of the same ways based on a similar type of
agentive organization. To what degree do they experience the
world in similar ways as well? Using contemporary research
in evolutionarily biology and animal cognition, I explicitly
compare the kinds of experience the two species of capable
of having. I conclude that chimpanzees’ experience of the
world, their experiential niche as I call it, is: (i)
intentional in basically the same way as humans’; (ii)
rational in the sense that it is self-critical and operates
with logically structured causal and intentional inferences;
but (iii) not normative at all in that it does not operate
with “objective” evaluative standards. Scientific data
do not answer philosophical questions, but they provide rich
raw material for scientists and philosophers alike to
reflect on and clarify fundamental psychological
concepts.},
Doi = {10.1007/s11229-022-03574-5},
Key = {fds362986}
}
@article{fds362632,
Author = {O'Madagain, C and Helming, KA and Schmidt, MFH and Shupe, E and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Great apes and human children rationally monitor their
decisions.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {289},
Number = {1971},
Pages = {20212686},
Year = {2022},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2686},
Abstract = {Several species can detect when they are uncertain about
what decision to make-revealed by opting out of the choice,
or by seeking more information before deciding. However, we
do not know whether any nonhuman animals recognize when they
need more information to make a decision because new
evidence contradicts an already-formed belief. Here, we
explore this ability in great apes and human children.
First, we show that after great apes saw new evidence
contradicting their belief about which of two rewards was
greater, they stopped to recheck the evidence for their
belief before deciding. This indicates the ability to keep
track of the reasons for their decisions, or 'rational
monitoring' of the decision-making process. Children did the
same at 5 years of age, but not at 3 years. In a second
study, participants formed a belief about a reward's
location, but then a social partner contradicted them, by
picking the opposite location. This time even 3-year-old
children rechecked the evidence, while apes ignored the
disagreement. While apes were sensitive only to the conflict
in physical evidence, the youngest children were more
sensitive to peer disagreement than conflicting physical
evidence.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2021.2686},
Key = {fds362632}
}
@article{fds359682,
Author = {Vasil, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Effects of "we"-framing on young children's commitment,
sharing, and helping.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {214},
Pages = {105278},
Year = {2022},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105278},
Abstract = {By around 3 years of age, collaboration induces in young
children a normative sense of "we" that creates a sense of
obligation (e.g., commitment, fairness) toward their
collaborative partner. The current study investigated
whether this normative sense of we could be induced purely
verbally in 3- and 4-year-old children. Children joined a
puppet at a table to draw. In one condition the puppet
repeatedly framed things as "we" are going to sit at the
table, "we" are going to draw, and so forth, whereas in the
other condition the pronoun used was always "you." Dependent
measures gauged children's commitment, resource
distribution, and helping behavior toward their partner.
Results showed that both 3- and 4-year-olds felt a greater
sense of commitment to their partner after "we"-framing than
after "you"-framing. The 4-year-olds evidenced this
commitment by showing a greater reluctance to abandon their
partner for a more fun game compared with the 3-year-olds.
The 3-year-olds did not share this reluctance, but when they
did abandon their partner they more often took leave
following we-framing by "announcing" their leaving. There
were no effects of we-framing on children's sharing with
their partner or helping behavior. These results suggest
that verbal we-framing, as compared with you-framing, is an
effective means of inducing in children a sense of shared
agency and commitment with a partner.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105278},
Key = {fds359682}
}
@article{fds360579,
Author = {O'Madagain, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Shared intentionality, reason-giving and the evolution of
human culture.},
Journal = {Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Series B, Biological sciences},
Volume = {377},
Number = {1843},
Pages = {20200320},
Year = {2022},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0320},
Abstract = {The biological approach to culture focuses almost
exclusively on processes of social learning, to the neglect
of processes of cultural coordination including joint action
and shared intentionality. In this paper, we argue that the
distinctive features of human culture derive from humans'
unique skills and motivations for coordinating with one
another around different types of action and information. As
different levels of these skills of 'shared intentionality'
emerged over the last several hundred thousand years, human
culture became characterized first by such things as
collaborative activities and pedagogy based on cooperative
communication, and then by such things as collaborative
innovations and normatively structured pedagogy. As a kind
of capstone of this trajectory, humans began to coordinate
not just on joint actions and shared beliefs, but on the
reasons for what we believe or how we act. Coordinating on
reasons powered the kinds of extremely rapid innovation and
stable cumulative cultural evolution especially
characteristic of the human species in the last several tens
of thousands of years. This article is part of a discussion
meeting issue 'The emergence of collective knowledge and
cumulative culture in animals, humans and
machines'.},
Doi = {10.1098/rstb.2020.0320},
Key = {fds360579}
}
@article{fds362756,
Author = {Kanngiesser, P and Schäfer, M and Herrmann, E and Zeidler, H and Haun,
D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children across societies enforce conventional norms but in
culturally variable ways.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {119},
Number = {1},
Pages = {e2112521118},
Year = {2022},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2112521118},
Abstract = {Individuals in all societies conform to their cultural
group's conventional norms, from how to dress on certain
occasions to how to play certain games. It is an open
question, however, whether individuals in all societies
actively enforce the group's conventional norms when others
break them. We investigated third-party enforcement of
conventional norms in 5- to 8-y-old children (<i>n</i> =
376) from eight diverse small-scale and large-scale
societies. Children learned the rules for playing a new
sorting game and then, observed a peer who was apparently
breaking them. Across societies, observer children
intervened frequently to correct their misguided peer (i.e.,
more frequently than when the peer was following the rules).
However, both the magnitude and the style of interventions
varied across societies. Detailed analyses of children's
interactions revealed societal differences in children's
verbal protest styles as well as in their use of actions,
gestures, and nonverbal expressions to intervene. Observers'
interventions predicted whether their peer adopted the
observer's sorting rule. Enforcement of conventional norms
appears to be an early emerging human universal that comes
to be expressed in culturally variable ways.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.2112521118},
Key = {fds362756}
}
@article{fds359904,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Knowledge-by-acquaintance before propositional
knowledge/belief.},
Journal = {The Behavioral and brain sciences},
Volume = {44},
Pages = {e173},
Year = {2021},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x20001387},
Abstract = {More basic than the authors' distinction between knowing and
believing is a distinction between knowledge-by-acquaintance
(I know John Smith) and propositional knowledge/belief (I
know/believe that John Smith lives in Durham). This
distinction provides a better account of both the
comparative and developmental data.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x20001387},
Key = {fds359904}
}
@article{fds359733,
Author = {Kanngiesser, P and Mammen, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of justifications for
breaking a promise},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {60},
Year = {2021},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101127},
Abstract = {There are sometimes legitimate reasons for breaking a
promise when circumstances change. We investigated 3- and
5-year-old German children's understanding of promise
breaking in prosocial (helping someone else) and selfish
(playing with someone else) conditions. In Study 1 (n = 80,
50% girls), preschoolers initially kept their own promise in
all conditions. When they eventually broke their promise,
3-year-olds’ justifications mostly referenced salient
events, whereas 5-year-olds also referenced social norms. In
Study 2 (n = 65, 49% girls), 5-year-olds preferred others’
promise-breaking more in prosocial than selfish conditions;
3-year-olds showed the reverse pattern. Three-year-olds’
justifications focused on desires, whereas 5-year-olds
focused on relevant events. Overall, 3-year-olds were able
to offer justifications, but 5-year-olds started to
distinguish what counted in the eyes of others as “good”
and “bad” reasons for promise breaking.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101127},
Key = {fds359733}
}
@article{fds359681,
Author = {Straka, BC and Stanaland, A and Tomasello, M and Gaither,
SE},
Title = {Who can be in a group? 3- to 5-year-old children construe
realistic social groups through mutual intentionality},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {60},
Year = {2021},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101097},
Abstract = {Recent research suggests that young children's causal
justification for minimal group membership can be induced
via a cognitive framework of mutual intentionality. That is,
an individual can become a group member when both the
individual and group agree to membership. Here, we
investigated if children ages 3–5 understand groups formed
by mutual intentions and whether they apply mutual
intentions to realistic groups with varying entitative and
essentialized qualities. In two studies (N = 197), we asked
3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children if a novel character could
join an existing group based on intentionality (mutual,
individual-, group-only) and group type (task, friends,
family). We find that 4- and 5-year-olds robustly relied on
mutual intentions to constitute group membership and
3-year-olds also demonstrated emerging usage of this
cognitive framework. Moreover, children employed mutual
intentionality across different group types, suggesting a
general framework for children's understanding of different
social groups.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101097},
Key = {fds359681}
}
@article{fds355156,
Author = {Kachel, G and Moore, R and Hepach, R and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Toddlers Prefer Adults as Informants: 2- and 3-Year-Olds'
Use of and Attention to Pointing Gestures From Peer and
Adult Partners.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {92},
Number = {4},
Pages = {e635-e652},
Year = {2021},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13544},
Abstract = {Two- and 3-year-old children (N = 96) were tested in an
object-choice task with video presentations of peer and
adult partners. An immersive, semi-interactive procedure
enabled both the close matching of adult and peer conditions
and the combination of participants' choice behavior with
looking time measures. Children were more likely to use
information provided by adults. As the effect was more
pronounced in the younger age-group, the observed bias may
fade during toddlerhood. As there were no differences in
children's propensity to follow peer and adult gestures with
their gaze, these findings provide some of the earliest
evidence to date that young children take an interlocutor's
age into account when judging ostensively communicated
testimony.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.13544},
Key = {fds355156}
}
@article{fds352448,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Response to: Rethinking Human Development and the Shared
Intentionality Hypothesis},
Journal = {Review of Philosophy and Psychology},
Volume = {12},
Number = {2},
Pages = {465-468},
Year = {2021},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13164-020-00510-9},
Abstract = {I respond to Moll, Nichols, and Mackey’s review of my book
Becoming Human. I agree with many of their points, but have
my own point of view on some others.},
Doi = {10.1007/s13164-020-00510-9},
Key = {fds352448}
}
@article{fds357565,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Norms Require Not Just Technical Skill and Social Learning,
but Real Cooperation},
Journal = {Analyse und Kritik},
Volume = {43},
Number = {1},
Pages = {219-223},
Year = {2021},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/auk-2021-0012},
Abstract = {Birch's account of the evolutionary origins of social norms
is essentially individualistic. It begins with individuals
regulating their own actions toward internally represented
goals, as evaluative standards, and adds in a social
dimension only secondarily. I argue that a better account
begins at the outset with uniquely human collaborative
activity in which individuals share evaluative standards
about how anyone who would play a given role must behave
both toward their joint goal and toward one another. This
then scaled up to the shared normative standards for anyone
who would be a member of 'our' social group.},
Doi = {10.1515/auk-2021-0012},
Key = {fds357565}
}
@article{fds358692,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Kano, F and Albiach-Serrano, A and Benziad,
L and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) internal arousal remains
elevated if they cannot themselves help a
conspecific.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {135},
Number = {2},
Pages = {196-207},
Year = {2021},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0000255},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees help conspecifics achieve their goals in
instrumental situations, but neither their immediate
motivation nor the evolutionary basis of their motivation is
clear. In the current study, we gave chimpanzees the
opportunity to instrumentally help a conspecific to obtain
food. Following recent studies with human children, we
measured their pupil diameter at various points in the
process. Like young children, chimpanzees' pupil diameter
decreased soon after they had helped. However, unlike
children, chimpanzees' pupils remained more dilated upon
watching a third party provide the needed help instead of
them. Our interpretation is that chimpanzees are motivated
to help others, and the evolutionary basis is direct or
indirect reciprocity, as providing help oneself sets the
conditions for a payback. This is in contrast to young
children whose goal is to see others being helped-by
whomever-presumably because their helping is not based on
reciprocity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all
rights reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/com0000255},
Key = {fds358692}
}
@article{fds356461,
Author = {Wolf, W and Nafe, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Development of the Liking Gap: Children Older Than 5
Years Think That Partners Evaluate Them Less Positively Than
They Evaluate Their Partners.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {32},
Number = {5},
Pages = {789-798},
Year = {2021},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797620980754},
Abstract = {After two strangers have briefly interacted with one
another, both believe that they like their partner more than
their partner likes them. A plausible explanation for this
<i>liking gap</i> is that people are constantly worrying
about how others are evaluating them. If so, one would
expect the liking gap to emerge in young children as they
become more concerned with their reputations and the
impression they make on other people. The current study
(<i>N</i> = 241 U.S. children; age range = 4-11 years)
supported this hypothesis, showing a liking gap beginning
when children were 5 years old, the age at which they first
become concerned with other people's evaluations of them.
Moreover, the liking gap became more pronounced as children
got older. These findings provide the first developmental
description of the liking gap and support the hypothesis
that this phenomenon is related to individuals' concerns for
how others evaluate them.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797620980754},
Key = {fds356461}
}
@article{fds356996,
Author = {O’Madagain, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Joint attention to mental content and the social origin of
reasoning},
Journal = {Synthese},
Volume = {198},
Number = {5},
Pages = {4057-4078},
Year = {2021},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02327-1},
Abstract = {Growing evidence indicates that our higher rational
capacities depend on social interaction—that only through
engaging with others do we acquire the ability to evaluate
beliefs as true or false, or to reflect on and evaluate the
reasons that support our beliefs. Up to now, however, we
have had little understanding of how this works. Here we
argue that a uniquely human socio-linguistic phenomenon
which we call ‘joint attention to mental content’ (JAM)
plays a key role. JAM is the ability to focus together in
conversation on the content of our mental states, such as
beliefs and reasons. In such conversations it can be made
clear that our attitudes to beliefs or reasons may
conflict—that what I think is true, you might think is
false, or that what I think is a good reason for believing
something, you might think is a bad reason. We argue that
through JAM, children discover that mental contents can be
evaluated under various attitudes, and that this discovery
transforms their mind-reading and reasoning
abilities.},
Doi = {10.1007/s11229-019-02327-1},
Key = {fds356996}
}
@article{fds352900,
Author = {Siposova, B and Grueneisen, S and Helming, K and Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M},
Title = {Common knowledge that help is needed increases helping
behavior in children.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {201},
Pages = {104973},
Year = {2021},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104973},
Abstract = {Although there is considerable evidence that at least some
helping behavior is motivated by genuine concern for others'
well-being, sometimes we also help solely out of a sense of
obligation to the persons in need. Our sense of obligation
to help may be particularly strong when there is common
knowledge between the helper and the helpee that the helpee
needs help. To test whether children's helping behavior is
affected by having common knowledge with the recipient about
the recipient's need, 6-year-olds faced a dilemma: They
could either collect stickers or help an experimenter.
Children were more likely to help when they and the
experimenter had common knowledge about the experimenter's
plight (because they heard it together) than when they each
had private knowledge about it (because they heard it
individually). These results suggest that already in young
children common knowledge can heighten the sense of
obligation to help others in need.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104973},
Key = {fds352900}
}
@article{fds354956,
Author = {Mammen, M and Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's moral judgments depend on the social
relationship between agents},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {57},
Year = {2021},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100973},
Abstract = {Moral judgments can vary depending on the social
relationship between agents. We presented 4- and 6-year-old
peer dyads (N = 128) with stories, in which a parent (parent
condition) or a peer protagonist (peer condition) faced a
child in need of help (e.g., the child is thirsty). The
dyads had to decide whether the protagonist helped at a cost
(e.g., by giving up their water) or not. 6-year-olds
expected a parent to help their child more than they
expected a child to help their peer. Moreover, children
justified their expectations more often with normative
statements (e.g., “She has to help”) in the parent
condition than in the peer condition. Thus, refusal to help
a child was more acceptable coming from a peer than from a
parent. The results suggest that young children take into
account multiple perspectives and form different normative
expectations for different social agents when making moral
judgments.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100973},
Key = {fds354956}
}
@article{fds355300,
Author = {Domberg, A and Tomasello, M and Köymen, B},
Title = {Collaborative reasoning in the context of group
competition.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {16},
Number = {2},
Pages = {e0246589},
Year = {2021},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246589},
Abstract = {A key skill in collaborative problem-solving is to
communicate and evaluate reasons for proposals to arrive at
the decision benefiting all group members. Although it is
well-documented that collaborative contexts facilitate young
children's reasoning, less is known about whether
competition with other groups contributes to children's
collaborative reasoning. We investigated whether
between-group competition facilitates children's
within-group collaborative reasoning, regarding their
production of reasons and their use of transacts,
communicative acts that operate on one another's proposals
and reasoning. We presented 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads
with two collaborative problem-solving tasks (decorating a
zoo and a dollhouse). In one task, children competed against
another group (the competitive condition); whereas in the
other task, they did not (non-competitive condition). Our
results suggest that children's sensitivity to group
competition as reflected in their reasoning changed
depending on the task. When they decorated a house, they
produced more transacts in the competitive condition than in
the non-competitive condition; whereas when they decorated a
zoo, this pattern was reversed. Thus, our results highlight
that group competition did not influence children's
collaborative reasoning consistently across different
contexts.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0246589},
Key = {fds355300}
}
@article{fds355723,
Author = {Plötner, M and Hepach, R and Over, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children share more under time pressure than after a
delay.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {16},
Number = {3},
Pages = {e0248121},
Year = {2021},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248121},
Abstract = {Adults under time pressure share with others generously, but
with more time they act more selfishly. In the current
study, we investigated whether young children already
operate in this same way, and, if so, whether this changes
over the preschool and early school age years. We tested 144
children in three age groups (3-, 5-, and 7-year olds) in a
one-shot dictator game: Children were given nine stickers
and had the possibility to share stickers with another child
who was absent. Children in the Time Pressure condition were
instructed to share quickly, whereas children in the Delay
condition were instructed to take time and consider their
decision carefully. Across ages, children in the Time
Pressure condition shared significantly more stickers than
children in the Delay condition. Moreover, the longer
children waited, the less they shared. Thus, children, like
adults, are more prosocial when acting spontaneously than
after considering their decision more carefully.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0248121},
Key = {fds355723}
}
@article{fds356997,
Author = {Li, L and Britvan, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children conform more to norms than to
preferences.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {16},
Number = {5},
Pages = {e0251228},
Year = {2021},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251228},
Abstract = {As members of cultural groups, humans continually adhere to
social norms and conventions. Researchers have hypothesized
that even young children are motivated to act
conventionally, but support for this hypothesis has been
indirect and open to other interpretations. To further test
this hypothesis, we invited 3.5-year-old children (N = 104)
to help set up items for a tea party. Children first
indicated which items they preferred but then heard an
informant (either an adult or another child) endorse other
items in terms of either conventional norms or personal
preferences. Children conformed (i.e., overrode their own
preference to follow the endorsement) more when the
endorsements were framed as norms than when they were framed
as preferences, and this was the case whether the informant
was an adult or another child. The priority of norms even
when stated by another child opposes the interpretation that
children only conformed in deference to adult authority.
These findings suggest that children are motivated to act
conventionally, possibly as an adaptation for living in
cultural groups.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0251228},
Key = {fds356997}
}
@article{fds355827,
Author = {Li, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {On the moral functions of language},
Journal = {Social Cognition},
Volume = {39},
Number = {1},
Pages = {99-116},
Publisher = {Guilford Press},
Year = {2021},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1521/soco.2021.39.1.99},
Abstract = {Previous comparisons of language and morality have taken a
cognitively internalist (i.e., within-minds) perspective. We
take a socially externalist (i.e., between-minds)
perspective, viewing both language and morality as forms of
social action. During human evolution, social cognitive
adaptations for cooperation evolved, including cooperative
communication (social acts to mentally coordinate with
others for common goals) and social normativity (social acts
to regulate cooperative social relationships). As human
cooperation scaled up in complexity, cooperative
communication and social normativity scaled up as well,
leading to the development of culturally elaborated forms of
language and morality. Language facilitates all aspects of
morality and is even necessary for certain aspects. Humans
use language to (1) initiate, (2) preserve, (3) revise, and
(4) act on morality in ways such as forming joint
commitments, teaching norms, modifying social realities, and
engaging in moral reason-giving.},
Doi = {10.1521/soco.2021.39.1.99},
Key = {fds355827}
}
@article{fds352447,
Author = {Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Early Ontogeny of Reason Giving},
Journal = {Child Development Perspectives},
Volume = {14},
Number = {4},
Pages = {215-220},
Year = {2020},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12384},
Abstract = {The key context within which preschool children learn to
justify beliefs with reasons is collaborative
problem-solving and decision-making with peers, including in
the moral domain, in which they engage with another coequal
mind in a cooperative spirit. Evidence for this proposal
comes from recent studies in which children demonstrated
sensitivity to the common ground assumptions they shared
with their peer partners in decision-making, as well as an
ability to provide reasons relevant to their shared
understanding. Training studies suggest that discourse with
others about reasons for beliefs provides children with the
appropriate learning experiences. Internalizing this
communicative process may be crucial for individual
deliberative reasoning.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdep.12384},
Key = {fds352447}
}
@article{fds351010,
Author = {Wolf, W and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Human children, but not great apes, become socially closer
by sharing an experience in common ground.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {199},
Pages = {104930},
Year = {2020},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104930},
Abstract = {To create social closeness, humans engage in a variety of
social activities centered around shared experiences. Even
simply watching the same video side by side creates social
closeness in adults and children. However, perhaps
surprisingly, a similar psychological mechanism was recently
shown in great apes. Here we asked whether the process by
which this social closeness is created is the same for
children and great apes. Each participant entered a room to
see an experimenter (E1) watching a video. In one condition,
E1 looked to the participant at the start of the video to
establish common ground that they were watching the video
together. In another condition, E1 did not look to the
participant in this way so that the participant knew they
were watching the same video, but the participant did not
know whether E1 was aware of this as well, so there was no
common ground (E1 looked to the participant later in the
procedure). Children, but not great apes, approached the
experimenter faster after the common ground condition,
suggesting that although both humans and great apes create
social closeness by co-attending to something in close
proximity, creating social closeness by sharing experiences
in common ground may be a uniquely human social-cognitive
process.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104930},
Key = {fds351010}
}
@article{fds351568,
Author = {Sánchez-Amaro, A and Duguid, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Do 7-year-old children understand social
leverage?},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {199},
Pages = {104963},
Year = {2020},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104963},
Abstract = {Individuals with an advantageous position during a
negotiation possess leverage over their partners. Several
studies with adults have investigated how leverage can
influence the coordination strategies of individuals when
conflicts of interest arise. In this study, we explored how
pairs of 7-year-old children solved a coordination game
(based on the Snowdrift scenario) when one child had
leverage over the other child. We presented a social dilemma
in the form of an unequal reward distribution on a rotating
tray. The rotating tray could be accessed by both children.
The child who waited longer to act received the best
outcome, but if both children waited too long, they would
lose the rewards. In addition, one child could forgo the
access to the rotating tray for an alternative option-the
leverage. Although children rarely used their leverage
strategically, children with access to the alternative were
less likely to play the social dilemma, especially when
their leverage was larger. Furthermore, children waited
longer to act as the leverage decreased. Finally, children
almost never failed to coordinate. The results hint to a
trade-off between maximizing benefits while maintaining
long-term collaboration in complex scenarios where
strategies such as turn taking are hard to
implement.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104963},
Key = {fds351568}
}
@article{fds351570,
Author = {Li, J and Hou, W and Zhu, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The development of intent-based moral judgment and moral
behavior in the context of indirect reciprocity: A
cross-cultural study},
Journal = {International Journal of Behavioral Development},
Volume = {44},
Number = {6},
Pages = {525-533},
Year = {2020},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0165025420935636},
Abstract = {The current study aimed to investigate the cultural
differences in the developmental origins of children’s
intent-based moral judgment and moral behavior in the
context of indirect reciprocity. To this end, we compared
how German and Chinese children interpret and react to
antisocial and prosocial interactions between puppets. An
actor puppet performed either a positive or negative act
toward a prosocial or antisocial target puppet with the
intention to cause harm or not; 197 three and five-year-old
children participated as a third party and were asked to
judge the actor puppet’s behavior and to distribute
stickers. Results showed that 3-year-old Chinese children
were able to take intention and context into account when
making moral judgments and distributing resources, whereas
German children did not show sensitivity to intention until
the age of 5. These findings suggest that culture may
mediate children’s intent-based moral judgment and moral
behavior in the context of indirect reciprocity.},
Doi = {10.1177/0165025420935636},
Key = {fds351570}
}
@article{fds351569,
Author = {Ulber, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's prosocial responses toward peers and adults
in two social contexts.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {198},
Pages = {104888},
Year = {2020},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104888},
Abstract = {Young children help and share with others, but little is
known about the "how" and "who" of this early prosocial
behavior. In the current study, we compared 2- and
3-year-old children's (N = 203; 101 girls) prosocial
behavior of sharing and helping. We asked whether the
process was different (a) if the social partner was an adult
or a same-age peer and (b) if the child was actively
interacting and engaged with the partner or not. The highest
prosocial responses were found in bilateral joint tasks such
as sharing the spoils after a collaborative effort and
helping a partner finish a mutual activity. Prosocial
responses were lower in unilateral autonomous tasks such as
assisting another person in opening a locked box and
distributing a windfall of resources. Children did not show
an overall preference for helping or sharing with adults
versus peers except that they were more likely to support a
peer than an adult in an instrumental helping task.
Together, these findings suggest that toddlers' early
prosocial skills and motivations are more sensitive to how
toddlers are engaged with a partner than to who that partner
is, implying that children have a nondiscriminatory general
inclination to benefit others, especially in bilateral
interactive scenarios.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104888},
Key = {fds351569}
}
@article{fds353880,
Author = {Hepach, R and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children show positive emotions when seeing someone
get the help they deserve},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {56},
Year = {2020},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100935},
Abstract = {Little is known about the underlying emotional bases of
children's prosociality. Here we engaged 32 dyads of
4-year-old children in a reward-collecting task at the end
of which one child was more in need of help. An adult then
either helped the needier child (deserving outcome) or the
less needy child (less deserving outcome). Both children
expressed elevated upper-body posture (positively valenced
emotions) when the more needy (but not the less needy) child
was helped, whether it was themselves or not. In contrast,
both children showed decreased elevation when the less needy
(but not the more needy) child received the help, again
whether it was themselves or not. These results suggest that
preschool children's prosocial emotions are regulated not
only by sympathy for those needing help, but also by a sense
of deservingness as determined by social
comparison.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100935},
Key = {fds353880}
}
@article{fds349814,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Ontogenetic Foundations of Epistemic
Norms},
Journal = {Episteme},
Volume = {17},
Number = {3},
Pages = {301-315},
Year = {2020},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/epi.2019.50},
Abstract = {In this paper, I approach epistemic norms from an
ontogenetic point of view. I argue and present evidence that
to understand epistemic norms - e.g., scientific norms of
methodology and the evaluation of evidence - children must
first develop through their social interactions with others
three key concepts. First is the concept of belief, which
provides the most basic distinction on which scientific
investigations rest: the distinction between individual
subjective perspectives and an objective reality. Second is
the concept of reason, which in the context of science
obligates practitioners to justify their claims to others
with reasons by grounding them in beliefs that are
universally shared within the community. Third is the
concept of social norm, which is not primarily epistemic,
but provides children with an understanding of norms as
collective agreements. The theoretical argument is that all
three of these concepts emerge not from just any kind of
social interaction, but specifically from social
interactions structured by the human species' unique
capacities for shared intentionality.},
Doi = {10.1017/epi.2019.50},
Key = {fds349814}
}
@article{fds349805,
Author = {Gopnik, A and Frankenhuis, WE and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Introduction to special issue: 'Life history and learning:
how childhood, caregiving and old age shape cognition and
culture in humans and other animals'.},
Journal = {Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Series B, Biological sciences},
Volume = {375},
Number = {1803},
Pages = {20190489},
Year = {2020},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0489},
Abstract = {This special issue focuses on the relationship between life
history and learning, especially during human evolution.
'Life history' refers to the developmental programme of an
organism, including its period of immaturity, reproductive
rate and timing, caregiving investment and longevity. Across
many species an extended childhood and high caregiving
investment appear to be correlated with particular kinds of
plasticity and learning. Human life history is particularly
distinctive; humans evolved an exceptionally long childhood
and old age, and an unusually high level of caregiving
investment, at the same time that they evolved distinctive
capacities for cognition and culture. The contributors
explore the relations between life history, plasticity and
learning across a wide range of methods and populations,
including theoretical and empirical work in biology,
anthropology and developmental psychology. This article is
part of the theme issue 'Life history and learning: how
childhood, caregiving and old age shape cognition and
culture in humans and other animals'.},
Doi = {10.1098/rstb.2019.0489},
Key = {fds349805}
}
@article{fds349806,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The adaptive origins of uniquely human sociality.},
Journal = {Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Series B, Biological sciences},
Volume = {375},
Number = {1803},
Pages = {20190493},
Year = {2020},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0493},
Abstract = {Humans possess some unique social-cognitive skills and
motivations, involving such things as joint attention,
cooperative communication, dual-level collaboration and
cultural learning. These are almost certainly adaptations
for humans' especially complex sociocultural lives. The
common assumption has been that these unique skills and
motivations emerge in human infancy and early childhood as
preparations for the challenges of adult life, for example,
in collaborative foraging. In the current paper, I propose
that the curiously early emergence of these skills in
infancy--well before they are needed in adulthood--along
with other pieces of evidence (such as almost exclusive use
with adults not peers) suggests that aspects of the
evolution of these skills represent ontogenetic adaptations
to the unique socio-ecological challenges human infants face
in the context of a regime of cooperative breeding and
childcare. This article is part of the theme issue 'Life
history and learning: how childhood, caregiving and old age
shape cognition and culture in humans and other
animals'.},
Doi = {10.1098/rstb.2019.0493},
Key = {fds349806}
}
@article{fds349808,
Author = {Bohn, M and Kordt, C and Braun, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Learning Novel Skills From Iconic Gestures: A Developmental
and Evolutionary Perspective.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {31},
Number = {7},
Pages = {873-880},
Year = {2020},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797620921519},
Abstract = {Cumulative cultural learning has been argued to rely on
high-fidelity copying of other individuals' actions. Iconic
gestures of actions have no physical effect on objects in
the world but merely represent actions that would have an
effect. Learning from iconic gestures thus requires paying
close attention to the teacher's precise bodily movements-a
prerequisite for high-fidelity copying. In three studies, we
investigated whether 2- and 3-year-old children (<i>N</i> =
122) and great apes (<i>N</i> = 36) learn novel skills from
iconic gestures. When faced with a novel apparatus,
participants watched an experimenter perform either an
iconic gesture depicting the action necessary to open the
apparatus or a gesture depicting a different action.
Children, but not great apes, profited from iconic gestures,
with older children doing so to a larger extent. These
results suggest that high-fidelity copying abilities are
firmly in place in humans by at least 3 years of
age.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797620921519},
Key = {fds349808}
}
@article{fds349807,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The development of coordination via joint expectations for
shared benefits.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {56},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1149-1156},
Year = {2020},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000936},
Abstract = {People frequently need to cooperate despite having strong
self-serving motives. In the current study, pairs of 5- and
7-year-olds (<i>N</i> = 160) faced a one-shot coordination
problem: To benefit, children had to choose the same of 3
reward divisions. They could not communicate or see each
other and thus had to accurately predict each other's
choices to succeed. One division split the rewards evenly,
while the others each favored one child. Five-year-olds
mostly chose the division favorable to themselves, resulting
in coordination failure. By contrast, 7-year-olds mostly
coordinated successfully by choosing the division that split
the rewards equally (even though they behaved selfishly in a
control condition in which they could choose independently).
This suggests that by age 7, children jointly expect
benefits to be shared among interdependent social partners
"fairly" and that fair compromises can emanate from a
cooperative rationality adapted for social coordination.
(PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights
reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000936},
Key = {fds349807}
}
@article{fds349811,
Author = {Schmelz, M and Grueneisen, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The psychological mechanisms underlying reciprocal
prosociality in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {134},
Number = {2},
Pages = {149-157},
Year = {2020},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0000200},
Abstract = {In both the wild and captivity, chimpanzees engage in
reciprocal patterns of prosocial behavior. However, the
proximate mechanisms underlying these patterns are unclear.
In the current study, we investigated whether chimpanzees
prefer to act prosocially toward conspecifics who have
directly benefited them (perhaps based on an affective bond)
or whether they simply observe the prosocial behavior of
others in general (including indirectly to third parties)
and preferentially interact with and behave prosocially
toward the most prosocial individuals. We found good
evidence for direct reciprocity but little evidence for a
general (indirect) preference for prosocial individuals.
These results suggest that cooperative reciprocity in
chimpanzees may be based mostly on social-affective
processes and direct interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record
(c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/com0000200},
Key = {fds349811}
}
@article{fds349809,
Author = {Hepach, R and Benziad, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees help others with what they want; children help
them with what they need.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {23},
Number = {3},
Pages = {e12922},
Year = {2020},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12922},
Abstract = {Humans, including young children, are strongly motivated to
help others, even paying a cost to do so. Humans' nearest
primate relatives, great apes, are likewise motivated to
help others, raising the question of whether the motivations
of humans and apes are the same. Here we compared the
underlying motivation to help in human children and
chimpanzees. Both species understood the situation and
helped a conspecific in a straightforward situation.
However, when helpers knew that what the other was
requesting would not actually help her, only children gave
her what she needed instead of giving her what she
requested. These results suggest that both chimpanzees and
human children help others but the underlying motivation for
why they help differs. In comparison to chimpanzees, young
children help in a paternalistic manner. The evolutionary
hypothesis is that uniquely human socio-ecologies based on
interdependent cooperation gave rise to uniquely human
prosocial motivations to help others paternalistically.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12922},
Key = {fds349809}
}
@article{fds349810,
Author = {Köymen, B and Jurkat, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Preschoolers refer to direct and indirect evidence in their
collaborative reasoning.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {193},
Pages = {104806},
Year = {2020},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104806},
Abstract = {Collaborative reasoning requires partners to evaluate
options and the evidence for or against each option. We
investigated whether preschoolers can explain why one option
is best (direct reasons) and why the other option is not
(indirect reasons), looking at both problems that have a
correct answer and those that require choosing the better
option. In Study 1, both age groups produced direct reasons
equally frequently in both problems. However, 5-year-olds
produced indirect reasons more often than 3-year-olds,
especially when there was a correct answer. In Study 2 with
a nonverbal task with a correct answer, 3-year-olds produced
indirect reasons more often than in Study 1, although
5-year-olds' indirect reasons were more efficiently stated.
These results demonstrate that even 3-year-olds, and even
nonverbally, can point out to a partner a fact that
constitutes a reason for them to arrive at a correct joint
decision.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104806},
Key = {fds349810}
}
@article{fds349820,
Author = {Köymen, B and O'Madagain, C and Domberg, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young Children's Ability to Produce Valid and Relevant
Counter-Arguments.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {91},
Number = {3},
Pages = {685-693},
Year = {2020},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13338},
Abstract = {In collaborative problem solving, children produce and
evaluate arguments for proposals. We investigated whether 3-
and 5-year-olds (N = 192) can produce and evaluate
arguments against those arguments (i.e., counter-arguments).
In Study 1, each child within a peer dyad was privately
given a reason to prefer one over another solution to a
task. One child, however, was given further information that
would refute the reasoning of their partner. Five-year-olds,
but not 3-year-olds, identified and produced valid and
relevant counter-arguments. In Study 2, 3-year-olds were
given discourse training (discourse that contrasted valid
and invalid counter-arguments) and then given the same
problem-solving tasks. After training, 3-year-olds could
also identify and produce valid and relevant
counter-arguments. Thus, participating in discourse about
reasons facilitates children's counter-argumentation.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.13338},
Key = {fds349820}
}
@article{fds351571,
Author = {Duguid, S and Wyman, E and Grueneisen, S and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The strategies used by chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and
children (Homo sapiens) to solve a simple coordination
problem.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Year = {2020},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0000220},
Abstract = {One of the challenges of collaboration is to coordinate
decisions with others, and recent theories have proposed
that humans, in particular, evolved skills to address this
challenge. To test this hypothesis, we compared the
coordination abilities of 4-year-old children and
chimpanzees with a simple coordination problem. To retrieve
a reward from a "puzzle box," pairs of individuals were
simply required to choose the same 1 of 4 options. If
successful, they each received the same reward, so there
were no conflicts of interest. Individuals were paired with
multiple partners over time. Both species were able to
coordinate, but there were marked differences in the way
they did so. Children were able to coordinate quickly and
flexibly, adjusting easily to new partners, suggesting an
understanding of the coordination process. In contrast,
chimpanzees took time to converge on a single solution with
each new partner, with no gains across partners, suggesting
that their coordination was based only on repeating
successful past choices. Together, these results support the
hypothesis that humans have evolved unique skills for
coordinating decisions and actions with others in the
pursuit of common interests. (PsycInfo Database Record (c)
2020 APA, all rights reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/com0000220},
Key = {fds351571}
}
@article{fds349812,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The many faces of obligation.},
Journal = {The Behavioral and brain sciences},
Volume = {43},
Pages = {e89},
Year = {2020},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x19002620},
Abstract = {My response to the commentaries focuses on four issues: (1)
the diversity both within and between cultures of the many
different faces of obligation; (2) the possible evolutionary
roots of the sense of obligation, including possible sources
that I did not consider; (3) the possible ontogenetic roots
of the sense of obligation, including especially children's
understanding of groups from a third-party perspective
(rather than through participation, as in my account); and
(4) the relation between philosophical accounts of normative
phenomena in general - which are pitched as not totally
empirical - and empirical accounts such as my own. I have
tried to distinguish comments that argue for extensions of
the theory from those that represent genuine
disagreement.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x19002620},
Key = {fds349812}
}
@article{fds349813,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The role of roles in uniquely human cognition and
sociality},
Journal = {Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour},
Volume = {50},
Number = {1},
Pages = {2-19},
Year = {2020},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12223},
Abstract = {To understand themselves as playing a social role,
individuals must understand themselves to be contributing to
a cooperative endeavor. Psychologically, the form of
cooperation required is a specific type that only humans may
possess, namely, one in which individuals form a joint or
collective agency to pursue a common end. This begins
ontogenetically not with the societal level but rather with
more local collaboration between individuals. Participating
in collaborative endeavors of this type leads young
children, cognitively, to think in terms of different
perspectives on a joint focus of attention - including
ultimately an objective perspective - and to organize their
experience in terms of a relational-thematic-narrative
dimension. Socially, such participation leads young children
to an understanding of self-other equivalence with mutual
respect among collaborative partners and, ultimately, to a
normative (i.e. moral) stance toward “we” in the
community within which one is forming a moral role or
identity. The dual-level structure of shared
endeavors/realities with individual roles/perspectives is
responsible for many aspects of the human species' most
distinctive psychology.},
Doi = {10.1111/jtsb.12223},
Key = {fds349813}
}
@article{fds349815,
Author = {Kanngiesser, P and Rossano, F and Frickel, R and Tomm, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children, but not great apes, respect ownership.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {23},
Number = {1},
Pages = {e12842},
Year = {2020},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12842},
Abstract = {Access to and control of resources is a major source of
costly conflicts. Animals, under some conditions, respect
what others control and use (i.e. possession). Humans not
only respect possession of resources, they also respect
ownership. Ownership can be viewed as a cooperative
arrangement, where individuals inhibit their tendency to
take others' property on the condition that those others
will do the same. We investigated to what degree great apes
follow this principle, as compared to human children. We
conducted two experiments, in which dyads of individuals
could access the same food resources. The main test of
respect for ownership was whether individuals would refrain
from taking their partner's resources even when the partner
could not immediately access and control them. Captive apes
(N = 14 dyads) failed to respect their partner's claim on
food resources and frequently monopolized the resources when
given the opportunity. Human children (N = 14 dyads),
tested with a similar apparatus and procedure, respected
their partner's claim and made spontaneous verbal references
to ownership. Such respect for the property of others
highlights the uniquely cooperative nature of human
ownership arrangements.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12842},
Key = {fds349815}
}
@article{fds349816,
Author = {Wolf, W and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Watching a video together creates social closeness between
children and adults.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {189},
Pages = {104712},
Year = {2020},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104712},
Abstract = {Human social relationships are often formed through shared
social activities in which individuals share mental states
about external stimuli. Previous work on joint attention has
shown that even minimal shared experiences such as watching
something together facilitates social closeness between
individuals. Here, we examined whether young children
already connect with others through joint attention. In the
current studies, children sat next to a novel adult who
either watched a film with them or was not able to see the
film and read a book instead. After the video, we measured
children's willingness (i.e., latency) to approach the
experimenter holding out a toy. In both studies, the
2.5-year-olds who watched the film together approached more
quickly than the other children. These results show that
both minimally interactive shared experiences and
noninteractive shared experiences lead children to feel more
comfortable with a novel adult. This suggests that joint
attention interactions, and shared experiences in general,
play an important role not only in children's cognitive
development but also in their social development and the
formation of their social relationships.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104712},
Key = {fds349816}
}
@article{fds349817,
Author = {Pouscoulous, N and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Early birds: Metaphor understanding in 3-year-olds},
Journal = {Journal of Pragmatics},
Volume = {156},
Pages = {160-167},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2020},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.05.021},
Abstract = {To assess children's cognitive capacities to understand
(rather than explain or paraphrase) metaphors, we
investigated how 3-year-olds (n = 36; 3;0–3;3) fare with
novel metaphors corresponding to their world knowledge and
linguistic competences using a behavioural choice paradigm.
In a game, participants had to give the experimenter one of
two objects referred to by a metaphorical expression. Unlike
what previous literature suggests, our results indicate that
3-year-olds are able to understand novel metaphors that are
appropriate for their vocabulary and world knowledge, based
on action measures rather than metalinguistic responses. We
discuss how factors other than incompetence with pragmatic
inferencing can explain difficulties with metaphor
comprehension.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2019.05.021},
Key = {fds349817}
}
@article{fds349818,
Author = {Bohn, M and Kachel, G and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children spontaneously recreate core properties of
language in a new modality.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {116},
Number = {51},
Pages = {26072-26077},
Year = {2019},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1904871116},
Abstract = {How the world's 6,000+ natural languages have arisen is
mostly unknown. Yet, new sign languages have emerged
recently among deaf people brought together in a community,
offering insights into the dynamics of language evolution.
However, documenting the emergence of these languages has
mostly consisted of studying the end product; the process by
which ad hoc signs are transformed into a structured
communication system has not been directly observed. Here we
show how young children create new communication systems
that exhibit core features of natural languages in less than
30 min. In a controlled setting, we blocked the possibility
of using spoken language. In order to communicate novel
messages, including abstract concepts, dyads of children
spontaneously created novel gestural signs. Over usage,
these signs became increasingly arbitrary and
conventionalized. When confronted with the need to
communicate more complex meanings, children began to
grammatically structure their gestures. Together with
previous work, these results suggest that children have the
basic skills necessary, not only to acquire a natural
language, but also to spontaneously create a new one. The
speed with which children create these structured systems
has profound implications for theorizing about language
evolution, a process which is generally thought to span
across many generations, if not millennia.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1904871116},
Key = {fds349818}
}
@article{fds349819,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Müller, K and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Toddlers' intrinsic motivation to return help to their
benefactor.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {188},
Pages = {104658},
Year = {2019},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.06.011},
Abstract = {A natural reaction to receiving help from someone is to help
that person in return. In two studies, we investigated the
developmental origins of children's motivation to return
help. In Study 1, 18- and 24-month-old toddlers were either
helped or not helped by an adult, and they could
subsequently provide that adult with help or else observe
another person providing help. We measured children's
internal arousal, via changes in pupil dilation, both before
and after help was provided. At both ages, children's
internal arousal was higher when they could not help the
adult who had previously helped them (and was lower when
they could). On the other hand, if the adult needing help
had not previously helped children, their internal arousal
was equally low regardless of whether they or another person
provided the help. Study 2 replicated this result and also
found that if children had previously been helped but the
person needing help was a different adult (not their
benefactor), children's internal arousal was equally low
regardless of whether they or another person provided the
help. Together, these results suggest that young children
are intrinsically motivated to return a received favor
specifically to the previous benefactor, perhaps indicating
a nascent sense of gratitude.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2019.06.011},
Key = {fds349819}
}
@article{fds349821,
Author = {Isella, M and Kanngiesser, P and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's Selective Trust in Promises.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {90},
Number = {6},
Pages = {e868-e887},
Year = {2019},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13105},
Abstract = {There has been extensive research into the development of
selective trust in testimony, but little is known about the
development of selective trust in promises. The present
research investigates children's (N = 264) selective trust
in others' promises to help. In Study 1, 6-year-olds
selectively trusted speakers who had previously kept a
promise. In Study 2, 5-year-olds displayed selective trust
for speakers who had previously kept a prosocial promise
(promise to help). In Study 3, 5-year-olds trusted a
speaker, who kept a prosocial promise, over a helper. These
data suggest that from the age of 5 children show selective
trust in others' promises using prosociality, promise
keeping, or both to inform their judgments.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.13105},
Key = {fds349821}
}
@article{fds349822,
Author = {Zhang, Z and Grocke, P and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The influence of intention and outcome on young children's
reciprocal sharing.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {187},
Pages = {104645},
Year = {2019},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.05.012},
Abstract = {This study investigated the influence of underlying
intentions and outcomes of a partner's sharing behavior on
young children's reciprocity. We provided 3- and 5-year-old
children with the opportunity to share with a partner
following different treatments of a partner's intention (to
share or not to share) that led to different outcomes
(children got or did not get stickers from their partner).
For the 3-year-olds, we found that the outcome of the
previous interaction influenced how much they shared,
whereas the intention of their partner affected how readily
they initiated sharing in response to social cues. For the
5-year-olds, we found that both outcome and intention
affected how much they shared as well as how readily they
initiated sharing. This suggests that already 3-year-olds
are able to take into account outcome and intention
information separately in reciprocal sharing. However, only
5-year-olds can combine both to flexibly maintain social
interactions without running the risk of being exploited by
others.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2019.05.012},
Key = {fds349822}
}
@article{fds349823,
Author = {Hardecker, S and Buryn-Weitzel, JC and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Adult instruction limits children's flexibility in moral
decision making.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {187},
Pages = {104652},
Year = {2019},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.06.005},
Abstract = {Children's moral behavior is guided, in part, by adults
teaching children how to treat others. However, when
circumstances change, such instructions may become either
unhelpful or limiting. In the current study, 48 dyads of
5-year-olds played a collaborative game and either (a)
received an instruction by an adult to share the spoils of
the game equally, (b) did not receive any instruction (but
still chose to share equally), or (c) agreed between
themselves on a rule to share equally. Afterward, each child
played with a new partner who was needier or worked harder
in his or her collaboration and so plausibly deserved more
than just half of the spoils. Results showed that children
who were instructed by an adult shared less with their more
deserving partner than children who did not receive any
instruction. Thus, moral instruction by adults may, in some
circumstances, make children more rigid in their moral
decisions.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2019.06.005},
Key = {fds349823}
}
@article{fds349824,
Author = {Kanngiesser, P and Rossano, F and Zeidler, H and Haun, D and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children's respect for ownership across diverse
societies.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {55},
Number = {11},
Pages = {2286-2298},
Year = {2019},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000787},
Abstract = {Ownership is a cornerstone of many human societies and can
be understood as a cooperative arrangement, where
individuals refrain from taking each other's property.
Owners can thus trust others to respect their property even
in their absence. We investigated this principle in 5- to
7-year-olds (N = 152) from 4 diverse societies. Children
participated in a resource task with a peer-partner, where
we established ownership by assigning children to one side
or the other of an apparatus and by marking resources with
colors to help children keep track of them. When retrieving
resources in the partner's presence, the majority of
children took their own things and respected what belonged
to their partner. A proportion of children in all societies
also respected ownership in their partner's absence,
although the strength of respect varied considerably across
societies. We discuss implications for the development of
ownership concepts and possible explanations for societal
differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all
rights reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000787},
Key = {fds349824}
}
@article{fds349825,
Author = {Tennie, C and Völter, CJ and Vonau, V and Hanus, D and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees use observed temporal directionality to learn
novel causal relations.},
Journal = {Primates; journal of primatology},
Volume = {60},
Number = {6},
Pages = {517-524},
Year = {2019},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10329-019-00754-9},
Abstract = {We investigated whether chimpanzees use the temporal
sequence of external events to determine causation.
Seventeen chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) witnessed a human
experimenter press a button in two different conditions.
When she pressed the "causal button" the delivery of juice
and a sound immediately followed (cause-then-effect). In
contrast, she pressed the "non-causal button" only after the
delivery of juice and sound (effect-then-cause). When given
the opportunity to produce the desired juice delivery
themselves, the chimpanzees preferentially pressed the
causal button, i.e., the one that preceded the effect.
Importantly, they did so in their first test trial and even
though both buttons were equally associated with juice
delivery. This outcome suggests that chimpanzees, like human
children, do not rely solely on their own actions to make
use of novel causal relations, but they can learn causal
sequences based on observation alone. We discuss these
findings in relation to the literature on causal inferences
as well as associative learning.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10329-019-00754-9},
Key = {fds349825}
}
@article{fds349826,
Author = {Mammen, M and Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's reasoning with peers and parents about moral
dilemmas.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {55},
Number = {11},
Pages = {2324-2335},
Year = {2019},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000807},
Abstract = {Children encounter moral norms in several different social
contexts. Often it is in hierarchically structured
interactions with parents or other adults, but sometimes it
is in more symmetrically structured interactions with peers.
Our question was whether children's discussions of moral
norms differ in these two contexts. Consequently, we had 4-
and 6-year-old children (<i>N</i> = 72) reason about moral
dilemmas with their mothers or peers. Both age groups
opposed their partner's views and explicitly justified their
own views more often with peers than with mothers. Mothers
adapted their discussions to the cognitive levels of their
children (e.g., focused more on the abstract moral norms
with 6-year-old children than with 4-year-old children), but
almost always with a pedagogical intent. Our results suggest
that with mothers, moral judgments are experienced mostly as
non-negotiable dictums, but with coequal peers they are
experienced more as personal beliefs that can be actively
negotiated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all
rights reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000807},
Key = {fds349826}
}
@article{fds349827,
Author = {Domberg, A and Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children choose to reason with partners who submit to
reason},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {52},
Year = {2019},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100824},
Abstract = {When reasoning with others, the reasons used in an exchange
can have varying degrees of quality, irrespective of the
facts under discussion. Partners often evaluate one
another's evaluation of reasons – one another's reasoning.
Can children evaluate their partner's judgment of the
quality of reasons independent of objective truth? 5- and
7-year-olds (N = 122) chose among two partners for
cooperation. In the experimental condition, one acceded to a
good reason, the other to a poor reason. In the control
condition, each agreed to a different good reason.
Crucially, in both conditions, both partners arrived at the
wrong conclusion. Results suggested that 7-year-olds, and
5-year-olds to a lesser degree, chose the partner who
endorsed the good reason in the experimental condition, but
showed no preference for partners in the control condition.
Thus, young children distinguish good from poor reasons,
even if neither leads to success, and choose partners who do
the same.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100824},
Key = {fds349827}
}
@article{fds349828,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Respect Defended.},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {23},
Number = {9},
Pages = {716-717},
Year = {2019},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.06.001},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2019.06.001},
Key = {fds349828}
}
@article{fds349829,
Author = {Kachel, U and Svetlova, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Three- and 5-year-old children's understanding of how to
dissolve a joint commitment.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {184},
Pages = {34-47},
Year = {2019},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.03.008},
Abstract = {When young children form a joint commitment with a partner,
they understand that this agreement generates obligations.
In this study, we investigated whether young children
understand that joint commitments, and their associated
obligations, may likewise be dissolved by agreement. The
participants (3- and 5-year-olds; N = 144) formed a
joint commitment with a puppet to play a collaborative game.
In one condition, the puppet asked permission to break off
and the children agreed; in a second condition, the puppet
notified the children of his or her leaving; and in a third
condition, the puppet just left abruptly. Children at both
ages protested more and waited longer for the puppet's
return (and said that the puppet deserved scolding and no
prize at the end) when the puppet left abruptly than in the
other two conditions (with "asking permission" leading to
the least protest of all). Overall, 3-year-olds protested
more, and waited longer for the partner's return, than
5-year-olds. Preschool children understand that the
obligations of a joint commitment may be dissolved by
agreement or, to a lesser degree, by notification.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2019.03.008},
Key = {fds349829}
}
@article{fds332984,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Thirty years of great ape gestures.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {22},
Number = {4},
Pages = {461-469},
Year = {2019},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-018-1167-1},
Abstract = {We and our colleagues have been doing studies of great ape
gestural communication for more than 30 years. Here we
attempt to spell out what we have learned. Some aspects of
the process have been reliably established by multiple
researchers, for example, its intentional structure and its
sensitivity to the attentional state of the recipient. Other
aspects are more controversial. We argue here that it is a
mistake to assimilate great ape gestures to the
species-typical displays of other mammals by claiming that
they are fixed action patterns, as there are many
differences, including the use of attention-getters. It is
also a mistake, we argue, to assimilate great ape gestures
to human gestures by claiming that they are used
referentially and declaratively in a human-like manner, as
apes' "pointing" gesture has many limitations and they do
not gesture iconically. Great ape gestures constitute a
unique form of primate communication with their own unique
qualities.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-018-1167-1},
Key = {fds332984}
}
@article{fds349830,
Author = {Wolf, W and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Visually attending to a video together facilitates great ape
social closeness.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {286},
Number = {1907},
Pages = {20190488},
Year = {2019},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0488},
Abstract = {Humans create social closeness with one another through a
variety of shared social activities in which they align
their emotions or mental states towards an external stimulus
such as dancing to music together, playing board games
together or even engaging in minimal shared experiences such
as watching a movie together. Although these specific
behaviours would seem to be uniquely human, it is unclear
whether the underlying psychology is unique to the species,
or if other species might possess some form of this
psychological mechanism as well. Here we show that great
apes who have visually attended to a video together with a
human (study 1) and a conspecific (study 2) subsequently
approach that individual faster (study 1) or spend more time
in their proximity (study 2) than when they had attended to
something different. Our results suggest that one of the
most basic mechanisms of human social bonding-feeling closer
to those with whom we act or attend together-is present in
both humans and great apes, and thus has deeper evolutionary
roots than previously suspected.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2019.0488},
Key = {fds349830}
}
@article{fds349831,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Eighteen-Month-Old Infants Correct Non-Conforming Actions by
Others.},
Journal = {Infancy : the official journal of the International Society
on Infant Studies},
Volume = {24},
Number = {4},
Pages = {613-635},
Year = {2019},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/infa.12292},
Abstract = {At around their third birthday, children begin to enforce
social norms on others impersonally, often using generic
normative language, but little is known about the
developmental building blocks of this abstract norm
understanding. Here, we investigate whether even toddlers
show signs of enforcing on others interpersonally how "we"
do things. In an initial dyad, 18-month-old infants learnt a
simple game-like action from an adult. In two experiments,
the adult either engaged infants in a normative interactive
activity (stressing that this is the way "we" do it) or, as
a non-normative control, marked the same action as
idiosyncratic, based on individual preference. In a test
dyad, infants had the opportunity to spontaneously intervene
when a puppet partner performed an alternative action.
Infants intervened, corrected, and directed the puppet more
in the normative than in the non-normative conditions. These
findings suggest that, during the second year of life,
infants develop second-personal normative expectations about
their partner's behavior ("You should do X!") in social
interactions, thus making an important step toward
understanding the normative structure of human cultural
activities. These simple normative expectations will later
be scaled up to group-minded and abstract social
norms.},
Doi = {10.1111/infa.12292},
Key = {fds349831}
}
@article{fds349832,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's Sense of Fairness as Equal Respect.},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {23},
Number = {6},
Pages = {454-463},
Year = {2019},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.03.001},
Abstract = {One influential view holds that children's sense of fairness
emerges at age 8 and is rooted in the development of an
aversion to unequal resource distributions. Here, we suggest
two amendments to this view. First, we argue and present
evidence that children's sense of fairness emerges already
at age 3 in (and only in) the context of collaborative
activities. This is because, in our theoretical view,
collaboration creates a sense of equal respect among
partners. Second, we argue and present evidence that
children's judgments about what is fair are essentially
judgments about the social meaning of the distributive act;
for example, children accept unequal distributions if the
procedure gave everyone an equal chance (so-called
distributive justice). Children thus respond to unequal (and
other) distributions not based on material concerns, but
rather based on interpersonal concerns: they want equal
respect.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2019.03.001},
Key = {fds349832}
}
@article{fds349833,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The moral psychology of obligation.},
Journal = {The Behavioral and brain sciences},
Volume = {43},
Pages = {e56},
Year = {2019},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x19001742},
Abstract = {Although psychologists have paid scant attention to the
sense of obligation as a distinctly human motivation, moral
philosophers have identified two of its key features: First,
it has a peremptory, demanding force, with a kind of
coercive quality, and second, it is often tied to
agreement-like social interactions (e.g., promises) in which
breaches prompt normative protest, on the one side, and
apologies, excuses, justifications, and guilt on the other.
Drawing on empirical research in comparative and
developmental psychology, I provide here a psychological
foundation for these unique features by showing that the
human sense of obligation is intimately connected
developmentally with the formation of a shared agent "we,"
which not only directs collaborative efforts but also
self-regulates them. Thus, children's sense of obligation is
first evident inside, but not outside, of collaborative
activities structured by joint agency with a partner, and it
is later evident in attitudes toward in-group, but not
out-group, members connected by collective agency. When you
and I voluntarily place our fate in one another's hands in
interdependent collaboration - scaled up to our lives
together in an interdependent cultural group - this
transforms the instrumental pressure that individuals feel
when pursuing individual goals into the pressure that "we"
put on me (who needs to preserve my cooperative identity in
this "we") to live up to our shared expectations: a we > me
self-regulation. The human sense of obligation may therefore
be seen as a kind of self-conscious motivation.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x19001742},
Key = {fds349833}
}
@article{fds349834,
Author = {Knofe, H and Engelmann, J and Tomasello, M and Herrmann,
E},
Title = {Chimpanzees monopolize and children take turns in a limited
resource problem.},
Journal = {Scientific reports},
Volume = {9},
Number = {1},
Pages = {7597},
Year = {2019},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-44096-4},
Abstract = {Competition over scarce resources is common across the
animal kingdom. Here we investigate the strategies of
chimpanzees and children in a limited resource problem. Both
species were presented with a tug-of-war apparatus in which
each individual in a dyad received a tool to access a
reward, but tools could not be used simultaneously. We
assessed the equality of tool use as well as the frequency
of turn taking. Both species managed to overcome this
conflict of interest but used different strategies to do so.
While there was substantial variation in chimpanzee
behaviour, monopolization was the common course of action:
tool use was asymmetric with individual chimpanzees
monopolizing the resource. In children, turn-taking emerged
as the dominant strategy: tool use was symmetric and
children alternated access to the tool at a high rate. These
results suggest that while both species possess strategies
for solving limited resource problems, humans might have
evolved species unique motivations and socio-cognitive
skills for dealing with such conflicts of
interest.},
Doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-44096-4},
Key = {fds349834}
}
@article{fds349835,
Author = {Melis, AP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) coordinate by communicating
in a collaborative problem-solving task.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {286},
Number = {1901},
Pages = {20190408},
Year = {2019},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0408},
Abstract = {Successful collaboration often relies on individuals'
capacity to communicate with each other. Despite extensive
research on chimpanzee communication, there is little
evidence that chimpanzees are capable, without extensive
human training, of regulating collaborative activities via
communication. This study investigated whether pairs of
chimpanzees were capable of communicating to ensure
coordination during collaborative problem-solving. The
chimpanzee pairs needed two tools to extract fruits from an
apparatus. The communicator in each pair could see the
location of the tools (hidden in one of two boxes), whereas
only the recipient could open the boxes. The subjects were
first successfully tested for their capacity to understand
the pointing gestures of a human who indicated the location
of the tools. In a subsequent conspecifics test, the
communicator increasingly communicated the tools' location,
by approaching the baited box and giving the key needed to
open it to the recipients. The recipient used these signals
and obtained the tools, transferring one of the tools to the
communicator so that the pair could collaborate in obtaining
the fruits. The study suggests that chimpanzees have the
necessary socio-cognitive skills to naturally develop a
simple communicative strategy to ensure coordination in a
collaborative task.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2019.0408},
Key = {fds349835}
}
@article{fds329385,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Müller, K and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The relation between young children's physiological arousal
and their motivation to help others.},
Journal = {Neuropsychologia},
Volume = {126},
Pages = {113-119},
Year = {2019},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.010},
Abstract = {Children are motivated to help others from an early age.
However, little is known about the internal biological
mechanisms underlying their motivation to help. Here, we
compiled data from five separate studies in which children,
ranging in age from 18 months to 5.5 years, witnessed an
adult needing help. In all studies, we assessed both (1)
children's internal physiological arousal via changes in
their pupil dilation, and (2) the latency and likelihood of
them providing help. The results showed that the greater the
baseline-corrected change in children's internal arousal in
response to witnessing the need situation, the faster and
more likely children were to help the adult. This was not
the case for the baseline measure of children's tonic
arousal state. Together, these results suggest that
children's propensity to help is systematically related to
their physiological arousal after they witness others
needing help. This sheds new light on the biological
mechanisms underlying not only young children's social
perception but also their prosocial motivation more
generally.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.10.010},
Key = {fds329385}
}
@article{fds349836,
Author = {Bohn, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Natural reference: A phylo- and ontogenetic perspective on
the comprehension of iconic gestures and
vocalizations.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {e12757},
Year = {2019},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12757},
Abstract = {The recognition of iconic correspondence between signal and
referent has been argued to bootstrap the acquisition and
emergence of language. Here, we study the ontogeny, and to
some extent the phylogeny, of the ability to spontaneously
relate iconic signals, gestures, and/or vocalizations, to
previous experience. Children at 18, 24, and 36 months of
age (N = 216) and great apes (N = 13) interacted with
two apparatuses, each comprising a distinct action and
sound. Subsequently, an experimenter mimicked either the
action, the sound, or both in combination to refer to one of
the apparatuses. Experiments 1 and 2 found no spontaneous
comprehension in great apes and in 18-month-old children. At
24 months of age, children were successful with a composite
vocalization-gesture signal but not with either vocalization
or gesture alone. At 36 months, children succeeded both
with a composite vocalization-gesture signal and with
gesture alone, but not with vocalization alone. In general,
gestures were understood better compared to vocalizations.
Experiment 4 showed that gestures were understood
irrespective of how children learned about the corresponding
action (through observation or self-experience). This
pattern of results demonstrates that iconic signals can be a
powerful way to establish reference in the absence of
language, but they are not trivial for children to
comprehend and not all iconic signals are created
equal.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12757},
Key = {fds349836}
}
@article{fds349837,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Engelmann, JM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children engage in competitive altruism.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {179},
Pages = {176-189},
Year = {2019},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.008},
Abstract = {Humans cultivate their reputations as good cooperators,
sometimes even competing with group mates, to appear most
cooperative to individuals during the process of selecting
partners. To investigate the ontogenetic origins of such
"competitive altruism," we presented 5- and 8-year-old
children with a dyadic sharing game in which both children
simultaneously decided how many rewards to share with each
other. The children were either observed by a third-person
peer or not. In addition, the children either knew that one
of them would be picked for a subsequent collaborative game
or had no such knowledge. We found that by 8 years of age,
children were more generous in the sharing game not only
when their behavior was observed by a third party but also
when it could affect their chances of being chosen for a
subsequent game. This is the first demonstration of
competitive altruism in young children, and as such it
underscores the important role of partner choice (and
individual awareness of the process) in encouraging human
cooperation from an early age.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.008},
Key = {fds349837}
}
@article{fds349838,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children use rules to coordinate in a social
dilemma.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {179},
Pages = {362-374},
Year = {2019},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.001},
Abstract = {Humans are frequently required to coordinate their actions
in social dilemmas (e.g. when one of two drivers has to
yield for the other at an intersection). This is commonly
achieved by individuals following communally known rules
that prescribe how people should behave. From relatively
early in development, children swiftly pick up the rules of
their culture and even start creating game rules among
peers. Thus far, however, little is known about children's
abilities create rules to regulate their own interactions in
social dilemma situations in which individuals' interests
are partially in conflict. Here, we repeatedly selected
dyads of children (5- and 8-year-olds, N = 144) at
random from a group and presented them with a chicken game -
a social dilemma in which individuals have conflicting
motives but coordination is required to avoid mutual
failure. In game breaks, groups reconvened and had the
opportunity to think of additional game rules. Eight- but
not five-year-olds readily came up with and agreed upon
impartial rules to guide their subsequent game behavior (but
only after adult prompting). Moreover, when playing by the
self-made rules, children achieved higher payoffs, had fewer
conflicts, and coordinated with greater efficiency than when
playing without a rule - which mimics the functional
consequences of rules on a societal level. These findings
suggest that by at least age 8, children are capable of
using rules to independently self-regulate potential
conflicts of interest with peers.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2018.11.001},
Key = {fds349838}
}
@article{fds349839,
Author = {Rapp, DJ and Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's reputational strategies in a peer group
context.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {55},
Number = {2},
Pages = {329-336},
Year = {2019},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000639},
Abstract = {Reputational concerns are known to promote cooperation.
Individuals regularly act more prosocially when their
behavior is observable by others. Here, we investigate 4-
and 5-year-old (N = 144) children's reputational strategies
in a competitive group setting. The aim of the current study
was to explore whether children's sharing behavior is
affected by the future possibility of being singled out
publicly as the most generous or, alternatively, the least
generous member of the group. Children were told that they
could share stickers with other children and that the
picture of either the (1) most generous or (2) least
generous donor would be displayed publicly. In both
conditions, children shared significantly more than in a
control condition. Moreover, 5-year-old, but not 4-year-old
children's sharing was affected more by the possibility of
being presented as the most generous than being presented as
the least generous member of the group. This study is the
first to show that children as young as 4 invest in their
future reputation and that by age 5 children flexibly apply
different reputational strategies depending on context.
(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights
reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000639},
Key = {fds349839}
}
@article{fds349840,
Author = {Kachel, U and Tomasello, M},
Title = {3- and 5-year-old children's adherence to explicit and
implicit joint commitments.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {55},
Number = {1},
Pages = {80-88},
Year = {2019},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000632},
Abstract = {The problem with collaboration is that there are temptations
to defect. Explicit joint commitments are designed to
mitigate some of the risks, but people also feel committed
to others implicitly when they both know together that they
each hold the other's fate in their hands. In the current
study, pairs of 3-year-old and 5-year-old children (<i>N</i>
= 192) played a collaborative game. One child was offered
individual rewards (bribed) to opt out of the collaboration.
In 3 different conditions, the level of the commitment was
manipulated. Three-year-old children were more likely to
resist the bribes when there was an explicit joint
commitment to the partner than when they were only playing
in parallel, with their reactions to an implicit commitment
falling in between. Five-year-olds were more likely to
resist bribes in both the implicit and explicit commitment
conditions than in the no-commitment condition. Thus,
children at both ages showed some level of commitment to a
collaborative partner in the face of bribes to defect, but
only 5-year-olds clearly appreciated that a common-ground
understanding of interdependence between partners generates
an implicit commitment or obligation. (PsycINFO Database
Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000632},
Key = {fds349840}
}
@article{fds349841,
Author = {Grocke, P and Rossano, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Preschoolers consider (absent) others when choosing a
distribution procedure.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {14},
Number = {8},
Pages = {e0221186},
Year = {2019},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221186},
Abstract = {This study investigated how the presence of others and
anticipated distributions for self influence children's
fairness-related decisions in two different socio-moral
contexts. In the first part, three- and five-year-old
children (N = 120) decided between a fair and an unfair
wheel of fortune to allocate resources (procedural justice).
In the second part, they directly chose between two
distributions of resources (distributive justice). While
making a decision, each child was either observed by the
affected group members (public), alone (private), or no
others were introduced (non-social control). Children choose
the fair option more often when others were affected
(independently of their presence) only in the procedural
justice task. These results suggest that using a fair
procedure to distribute resources allows young preschoolers
to overcome selfish tendencies.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0221186},
Key = {fds349841}
}
@article{fds349842,
Author = {John, M and Duguid, S and Tomasello, M and Melis,
AP},
Title = {How chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) share the spoils with
collaborators and bystanders.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {14},
Number = {9},
Pages = {e0222795},
Year = {2019},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222795},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees hunt cooperatively in the wild, but the factors
influencing food sharing after the hunt are not well
understood. In an experimental study, groups of three
captive chimpanzees obtained a monopolizable food resource,
either via two individuals cooperating (with the third as
bystander) or via one individual acting alone alongside two
bystanders. The individual that obtained the resource first
retained most of the food but the other two individuals
attempted to obtain food from the "captor" by begging. We
found the main predictor of the overall amount of food
obtained by bystanders was proximity to the food at the
moment it was obtained by the captor. Whether or not an
individual had cooperated to obtain the food had no effect.
Interestingly, however, cooperators begged more from captors
than did bystanders, suggesting that they were more
motivated or had a greater expectation to obtain food. These
results suggest that while chimpanzee captors in cooperative
hunting may not reward cooperative participation directly,
cooperators may influence sharing behavior through increased
begging.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0222795},
Key = {fds349842}
}
@article{fds366586,
Author = {Sánchez-Amaro, A and Duguid, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees and children avoid mutual defection in a social
dilemma},
Journal = {Evolution and Human Behavior},
Volume = {40},
Number = {1},
Pages = {46-54},
Year = {2019},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.07.004},
Abstract = {Cooperation often comes with the temptation to defect and
benefit at the cost of others. This tension between
cooperation and defection is best captured in social
dilemmas like the Prisoner's Dilemma. Adult humans have
specific strategies to maintain cooperation during
Prisoner's Dilemma interactions. Yet, little is known about
the ontogenetic and phylogenetic origins of human
decision-making strategies in conflict scenarios. To shed
light on this question, we compared the strategies used by
chimpanzees and 5-year old children to overcome a social
dilemma. In our task, waiting for the partner to act first
produced the best results for the subject. Alternatively,
they could mutually cooperate and divide the rewards. Our
findings indicate that the two species differed
substantially in their strategies to solve the task.
Chimpanzees became more strategic across the study period by
waiting longer to act in the social dilemma. Children
developed a more efficient strategy of taking turns to
reciprocate their rewards. Moreover, children used specific
types of communication to coordinate with their partners.
These results suggest that while both species behaved
strategically to overcome a conflict situation, only
children engaged in active cooperation to solve a social
dilemma.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.07.004},
Key = {fds366586}
}
@article{fds349843,
Author = {Stengelin, R and Grueneisen, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Why should I trust you? Investigating young children's
spontaneous mistrust in potential deceivers},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {48},
Pages = {146-154},
Year = {2018},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.08.006},
Abstract = {Children must learn not to trust everyone to avoid being
taken advantage of. In the current study, 5- and 7-year-old
children were paired with a partner whose incentives were
either congruent (cooperative condition) or conflicting
(competitive condition) with theirs. Children of both ages
were more likely to mistrust information spontaneously
provided by the competitive than the cooperative partner,
showing a capacity for detecting contextual effects on
incentives. However, a high proportion of children, even at
age 7, initially trusted the competitive partner. After
being misled once, almost all children mistrusted the
partner on a second trial irrespective of the partner's
incentives. These results demonstrate that while even school
age children are mostly trusting, they are only beginning to
spontaneously consider other's incentives when interpreting
the truthfulness of their utterances. However, after
receiving false information only once they immediately
switch to an untrusting attitude.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.08.006},
Key = {fds349843}
}
@article{fds349844,
Author = {Siposova, B and Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M},
Title = {Communicative eye contact signals a commitment to cooperate
for young children.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {179},
Pages = {192-201},
Year = {2018},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.010},
Abstract = {Making commitments to cooperate facilitates cooperation.
There is a long-standing theoretical debate about how
promissory obligations come into existence, and whether
linguistic acts (such as saying "I promise") are a necessary
part of the process. To inform this debate we experimentally
investigated whether even minimal, nonverbal behavior can be
taken as a commitment to cooperate, as long as it is
communicative. Five- to 7-year-old children played a Stag
Hunt coordination game in which they needed to decide
whether to cooperate or play individually. During the
decision-making phase, children's partner made either
ostensive, communicative eye contact or looked
non-communicatively at them. In Study 1 we found that
communicative looks produced an expectation of collaboration
in children. In Study 2 we found that children in the
communicative look condition normatively protested when
their partner did not cooperate, thus showing an
understanding of the communicative looks as a commitment to
cooperate. This is the first experimental evidence, in
adults or children, that in the right context,
communicative, but not non-communicative, looks can signal a
commitment.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.010},
Key = {fds349844}
}
@article{fds366587,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The normative turn in early moral development},
Journal = {Human Development},
Volume = {61},
Number = {4-5},
Pages = {248-263},
Year = {2018},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000492802},
Abstract = {The Cooperation Theory of moral development starts from the
premise that morality is a special form of cooperation.
Before 3 years of age, children help and share with others
prosocially, and they collaborate with others in ways that
foster a sense of equally deserving partners. But then, at
around the age of 3, their social interactions are
transformed by an emerging understanding of, and respect
for, normative standards. Three-year-olds become capable of
making and respecting joint commitments, treating
collaborative partners fairly, enforcing social norms, and
feeling guilty when they violate any of these. The almost
simultaneous emergence of a normative attitude in all of
these interactional contexts demands explanation. We suggest
a transactional causal model: the maturation of capacities
for shared intentionality (adaptations for cultural life)
makes possible new forms of cooperative social interaction,
and these new forms of cooperative social interaction foster
and guide moral development.},
Doi = {10.1159/000492802},
Key = {fds366587}
}
@article{fds326700,
Author = {Kachel, U and Svetlova, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Three-Year-Olds' Reactions to a Partner's Failure to Perform
Her Role in a Joint Commitment.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {89},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1691-1703},
Year = {2018},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12816},
Abstract = {When children make a joint commitment to collaborate,
obligations are created. Pairs of 3-year-old children
(N = 144) made a joint commitment to play a game. In three
different conditions the game was interrupted in the middle
either because: (a) the partner child intentionally
defected, (b) the partner child was ignorant about how to
play, or (c) the apparatus broke. The subject child reacted
differently in the three cases, protesting normatively
against defection (with emotional arousal and later
tattling), teaching when the partner seemed to be ignorant,
or simply blaming the apparatus when it broke. These results
suggest that 3-year-old children are competent in making
appropriate normative evaluations of intentions and
obligations of collaborative partners.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12816},
Key = {fds326700}
}
@article{fds333648,
Author = {Kachel, G and Moore, R and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds use adults' but not peers'
points.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {21},
Number = {5},
Pages = {e12660},
Year = {2018},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12660},
Abstract = {In the current study, 24- to 27-month-old children (N = 37)
used pointing gestures in a cooperative object choice task
with either peer or adult partners. When indicating the
location of a hidden toy, children pointed equally
accurately for adult and peer partners but more often for
adult partners. When choosing from one of three hiding
places, children used adults' pointing to find a hidden toy
significantly more often than they used peers'. In
interaction with peers, children's choice behavior was at
chance level. These results suggest that toddlers ascribe
informative value to adults' but not peers' pointing
gestures, and highlight the role of children's social
expectations in their communicative development.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12660},
Key = {fds333648}
}
@article{fds332985,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Great Apes and Human Development: A Personal
History},
Journal = {Child Development Perspectives},
Volume = {12},
Number = {3},
Pages = {189-193},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2018},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12281},
Abstract = {In this article, I recount my history of research with great
apes. From the beginning, the idea was to compare apes to
human children, with an eye to discovering facts relevant to
describing and explaining processes of human development.
The research went through three more or less distinct
stages, focusing on communication and social learning,
social cognition and theory of mind, and cooperation and
shared intentionality. I conclude by identifying problems
and prospects for comparative research in developmental
psychology.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdep.12281},
Key = {fds332985}
}
@article{fds349845,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {HOW WE LEARNED TO PUT OUR FATE IN ONE ANOTHER'S HANDS THE
ORIGINS OF MORALITY},
Journal = {SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN},
Volume = {319},
Number = {3},
Pages = {70-75},
Publisher = {SPRINGER},
Year = {2018},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0918-70},
Doi = {10.1038/scientificamerican0918-70},
Key = {fds349845}
}
@article{fds337395,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {How children come to understand false beliefs: A shared
intentionality account.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {115},
Number = {34},
Pages = {8491-8498},
Year = {2018},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1804761115},
Abstract = {To predict and explain the behavior of others, one must
understand that their actions are determined not by reality
but by their beliefs about reality. Classically, children
come to understand beliefs, including false beliefs, at
about 4-5 y of age, but recent studies using different
response measures suggest that even infants (and apes!) have
some skills as well. Resolving this discrepancy is not
possible with current theories based on individual
cognition. Instead, what is needed is an account recognizing
that the key processes in constructing an understanding of
belief are social and mental coordination with other persons
and their (sometimes conflicting) perspectives. Engaging in
such social and mental coordination involves species-unique
skills and motivations of shared intentionality, especially
as they are manifest in joint attention and linguistic
communication, as well as sophisticated skills of executive
function to coordinate the different perspectives involved.
This shared intentionality account accords well with
documented differences in the cognitive capacities of great
apes and human children, and it explains why infants and
apes pass some versions of false-belief tasks whereas only
older children pass others.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1804761115},
Key = {fds337395}
}
@article{fds335757,
Author = {Bohn, M and Zimmermann, L and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The social-cognitive basis of infants' reference to absent
entities.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {177},
Pages = {41-48},
Year = {2018},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.024},
Abstract = {Recent evidence suggests that infants as young as 12 month
of age use pointing to communicate about absent entities.
The tacit assumption underlying these studies is that
infants do so based on tracking what their interlocutor
experienced in a previous shared interaction. The present
study addresses this assumption empirically. In three
experiments, 12-month-old infants could request additional
desired objects by pointing to the location in which these
objects were previously located. We systematically varied
whether the adult from whom infants were requesting had
previously experienced the former content of the location
with the infant. Infants systematically adjusted their
pointing to the now empty location to what they experienced
with the adult previously. These results suggest that
infants' ability to communicate about absent referents is
based on an incipient form of common ground.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2018.03.024},
Key = {fds335757}
}
@article{fds366588,
Author = {John, M and Melis, AP and Read, D and Rossano, F and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The preference for scarcity: A developmental and comparative
perspective},
Journal = {Psychology and Marketing},
Volume = {35},
Number = {8},
Pages = {603-615},
Year = {2018},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/mar.21109},
Abstract = {Human adults often show a preference for scarce over
abundant goods. In this paper, we investigate whether this
preference was shared by 4- and 6-year-old children as well
as chimpanzees, humans’ nearest primate relative. Neither
chimpanzees nor 4-year-olds displayed a scarcity preference,
but 6-year-olds did, especially in the presence of
competitors. We conclude that scarcity preference is a
human-unique preference that develops as humans increase
their cognitive skills and social experiences with peers and
competitors. We explore different potential psychological
explanations for scarcity preference and conclude scarcity
preference is based on children's fear of missing out an
opportunity, especially when dealing with uncertainty or
goods of unknown value in the presence of competitors.
Furthermore, the results are in line with studies showing
that supply-based scarcity increases the desirability of
hedonic goods, suggesting that even as early as 6 years of
age humans may use scarce goods to feel unique or
special.},
Doi = {10.1002/mar.21109},
Key = {fds366588}
}
@article{fds366589,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Precís of a natural history of human morality},
Journal = {Philosophical Psychology},
Volume = {31},
Number = {5},
Pages = {661-668},
Year = {2018},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2018.1486605},
Abstract = {Here I summarize the main points in my 2016 book, A Natural
History of Human Morality. Taking an evolutionary point of
view, I characterize human morality as a special form of
cooperation. In particular, human morality represents a kind
of we > me orientation and valuation that emanates from the
logic of social interdependence, both at the level of
individual collaboration and at the level of the cultural
group. Human morality emanates from psychological processes
of shared intentionality evolved to enable individuals to
function effectively in ever more cooperative
lifeways.},
Doi = {10.1080/09515089.2018.1486605},
Key = {fds366589}
}
@article{fds366590,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Response to commentators},
Journal = {Philosophical Psychology},
Volume = {31},
Number = {5},
Pages = {817-829},
Year = {2018},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2018.1486604},
Doi = {10.1080/09515089.2018.1486604},
Key = {fds366590}
}
@article{fds333647,
Author = {House, BR and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Modeling social norms increasingly influences costly sharing
in middle childhood.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {171},
Pages = {84-98},
Year = {2018},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.014},
Abstract = {Prosocial and normative behavior emerges in early childhood,
but substantial changes in prosocial behavior in middle
childhood may be due to it becoming integrated with
children's understanding of what is normative. Here we show
that information about what is normative begins influencing
children's costly sharing in middle childhood in a sample of
6- to 11-year-old German children. Information about what is
normative was most influential when indicating what was
"right" (i.e., "The right thing is to choose this"). It was
less influential when indicating what was prescribed by a
rule (i.e., "There is a rule that says to choose this") or
when it indicated what the majority of people do (i.e.,
"Most people choose this"). These findings support the idea
that middle childhood is when social norms begin to shape
children's costly sharing and provide insight into the
psychological foundations of the relationship between norms
and prosocial behavior.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.12.014},
Key = {fds333647}
}
@article{fds329386,
Author = {Domberg, A and Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's reasoning with peers in cooperative and
competitive contexts.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {36},
Number = {1},
Pages = {64-77},
Year = {2018},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12213},
Abstract = {We report two studies that demonstrate how five- and
seven-year-olds adapt their production of arguments to
either a cooperative or a competitive context. Two games
elicited agreements from peer dyads about placing animals on
either of two halves of a playing field owned by either
child. Children had to produce arguments to justify these
decisions. Played in a competitive context that encouraged
placing animals on one's own half, children's arguments
showed a bias that was the result of withholding known
arguments. In a cooperative context, children produced not
only more arguments, but also more 'two-sided' arguments.
Also, seven-year-olds demonstrated a more frequent and
strategic use of arguments that specifically refuted
decisions that would favour their peers. The results suggest
that cooperative contexts provide a more motivating context
for children to produce arguments. Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject? Reasoning is a social
skill that allows people to reach joint decisions.
Preschoolers give reasons for their proposals in their peer
conversations. By adolescence, children use sophisticated
arguments (e.g., refutations and rebuttals). What the
present study adds? Cooperation offers a more motivating
context for children's argument production. Seven-year-olds
are more strategic than five-year-olds in their reasoning
with peers. Children's reasoning with others becomes more
sophisticated after preschool years.},
Doi = {10.1111/bjdp.12213},
Key = {fds329386}
}
@article{fds331567,
Author = {Vaish, A and Hepach, R and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The specificity of reciprocity: Young children reciprocate
more generously to those who intentionally benefit
them.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {167},
Pages = {336-353},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2018},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.11.005},
Abstract = {Young children engage in direct reciprocity, but the
mechanisms underlying such reciprocity remain unclear. In
particular, prior work leaves unclear whether children's
reciprocity is simply a response to receiving benefits
(regardless of whether the benefits were intended) or driven
by a mechanism of rewarding or preferring all benefactors
(regardless of whom they benefited). Alternatively, perhaps
children engage in genuine reciprocity such that they are
particularly prosocial toward benefactors who intentionally
provided them with benefits. Our findings support this
third, richer possibility; the 3-year-olds who received
benefits through the good intentions of a benefactor were
subsequently more generous toward the benefactor than
children who either (a) received the same benefits from the
benefactor unintentionally or (b) observed the benefactor
bestow the same benefits on another individual. Thus, young
children are especially motivated to benefit those who have
demonstrated goodwill toward them, suggesting, as one
possible mechanism, an early sense of gratitude.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.11.005},
Key = {fds331567}
}
@article{fds351573,
Author = {Li, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The development of intention-based sociomoral judgment and
distribution behavior from a third-party
stance.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {167},
Pages = {78-92},
Year = {2018},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.09.021},
Abstract = {The current study investigated children's intention-based
sociomoral judgments and distribution behavior from a
third-party stance. An actor puppet showed either positive
or negative intention toward a target puppet, which had
previously performed a prosocial or antisocial action toward
others (i.e., children witnessed various types of indirect
reciprocity). Children (3- and 5-year-olds) were asked to
make sociomoral judgments and to distribute resources to the
actor puppet. Results showed that 5-year-olds were more
likely than 3-year-olds to be influenced by intention when
they made their judgment and distributed resources. The
target's previous actions affected only 5-year-olds'
intent-based social preference. These results suggest that
children's judgments about intent-based indirect reciprocity
develop from ages 3 to 5 years.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.09.021},
Key = {fds351573}
}
@article{fds330413,
Author = {Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's meta-talk in their collaborative decision making
with peers.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {166},
Pages = {549-566},
Year = {2018},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.09.018},
Abstract = {In collaborative decision making, children must evaluate the
evidence behind their respective claims and the rationality
of their respective proposals with their partners. In the
main study, 5- and 7-year-old peer dyads (N = 196) were
presented with a novel animal. In the key condition,
children in a dyad individually received conflicting
information about what the animal needs (e.g., rocks vs.
sand for food) from sources that differ in reliability (with
first-hand vs. indirect evidence). Dyads in both age groups
were able to reliably settle on the option with the best
supporting evidence. Moreover, in making their decision,
children, especially 7-year-olds, engaged in various kinds
of meta-talk about the evidence and its validity. In a
modified version of the key condition in Study 2, 3- and
5-year-olds (N = 120) interacted with a puppet who tried
to convince children to change their minds by producing
meta-talk. When the puppet insisted and produced meta-talk,
5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, were more likely to change
their minds if their information was unreliable. These
results suggest that even preschoolers can engage in
collaborative reasoning successfully, but the ability to
reflect on the process by stepping back to jointly examine
the evidence emerges only during the early school
years.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.09.018},
Key = {fds330413}
}
@article{fds330414,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Concern for Group Reputation Increases Prosociality in Young
Children.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {29},
Number = {2},
Pages = {181-190},
Year = {2018},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797617733830},
Abstract = {The motivation to build and maintain a positive personal
reputation promotes prosocial behavior. But individuals also
identify with their groups, and so it is possible that the
desire to maintain or enhance group reputation may have
similar effects. Here, we show that 5-year-old children
actively invest in the reputation of their group by acting
more generously when their group's reputation is at stake.
Children shared significantly more resources with fictitious
other children not only when their individual donations were
public rather than private but also when their group's
donations (effacing individual donations) were public rather
than private. These results provide the first experimental
evidence that concern for group reputation can lead to
higher levels of prosociality.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797617733830},
Key = {fds330414}
}
@article{fds332050,
Author = {Mammen, M and Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The reasons young children give to peers when explaining
their judgments of moral and conventional
rules.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {54},
Number = {2},
Pages = {254-262},
Year = {2018},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000424},
Abstract = {Moral justifications work, when they do, by invoking values
that are shared in the common ground of the interlocutors.
We asked 3- and 5-year-old peer dyads (N = 144) to identify
and punish norm transgressors. In the moral condition, the
transgressor violated a moral norm (e.g., by stealing); in
the social rules condition, she/he violated a
context-specific rule (e.g., by placing a yellow toy in a
green box, instead of a yellow box). Children in both age
groups justified their punishment in the social rules
condition mostly by referring to the rule (e.g., "He must
put yellow toys in the yellow box"). In contrast, in the
moral condition they mostly justified their punishment by
simply referring to the observed fact (e.g., "He stole"),
seeing no need to state the norm involved (e.g., "He must
not steal"), presumably because they assumed this as part of
their moral common ground with their partner. These results
suggest that preschoolers assume certain common ground moral
values with their peers and use these in formulating
explicit moral judgments and justifications. (PsycINFO
Database Record},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000424},
Key = {fds332050}
}
@article{fds329017,
Author = {Grocke, P and Rossano, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children are more willing to accept group decisions in
which they have had a voice.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {166},
Pages = {67-78},
Year = {2018},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.003},
Abstract = {People accept an unequal distribution of resources if they
judge that the decision-making process was fair. In this
study, 3- and 5-year-old children played an allocation game
with two puppets. The puppets decided against a fair
distribution in all conditions, but they allowed children to
have various degrees of participation in the decision-making
process. Children of both ages protested less when they were
first asked to agree with the puppets' decision compared
with when there was no agreement. When ignored, the younger
children protested less than the older children-perhaps
because they did not expect to have a say in the
process-whereas they protested more when they were given an
opportunity to voice their opinion-perhaps because their
stated opinion was ignored. These results suggest that
during the preschool years, children begin to expect to be
asked for their opinion in a decision, and they accept
disadvantageous decisions if they feel that they have had a
voice in the decision-making process.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.003},
Key = {fds329017}
}
@article{fds335758,
Author = {Halina, M and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The goal of ape pointing.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {13},
Number = {4},
Pages = {e0195182},
Year = {2018},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195182},
Abstract = {Captive great apes regularly use pointing gestures in their
interactions with humans. However, the precise function of
this gesture is unknown. One possibility is that apes use
pointing primarily to direct attention (as in "please look
at that"); another is that they point mainly as an action
request (such as "can you give that to me?"). We
investigated these two possibilities here by examining how
the looking behavior of recipients affects pointing in
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus).
Upon pointing to food, subjects were faced with a recipient
who either looked at the indicated object (successful-look)
or failed to look at the indicated object (failed-look). We
predicted that, if apes point primarily to direct attention,
subjects would spend more time pointing in the failed-look
condition because the goal of their gesture had not been
met. Alternatively, we expected that, if apes point
primarily to request an object, subjects would not differ in
their pointing behavior between the successful-look and
failed-look conditions because these conditions differed
only in the looking behavior of the recipient. We found that
subjects did differ in their pointing behavior across the
successful-look and failed-look conditions, but contrary to
our prediction subjects spent more time pointing in the
successful-look condition. These results suggest that apes
are sensitive to the attentional states of gestural
recipients, but their adjustments are aimed at multiple
goals. We also found a greater number of individuals with a
strong right-hand than left-hand preference for
pointing.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0195182},
Key = {fds335758}
}
@article{fds366591,
Author = {Quick, AE and Lieven, E and Backus, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Constructively combining languages},
Journal = {Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism},
Volume = {8},
Number = {3},
Pages = {393-409},
Year = {2018},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lab.17008.qui},
Abstract = {Language development in bilingual children is often related
to differing levels of proficiency. Objective measurements
of bilingual development include for example mean length of
utterance (MLU). MLU is almost always calculated for each
language context (including both monolingual and code-mixed
utterances). In the current study, we analyzed the MLUs of
three German-English bilingual children, aged 2;3-3;11
separately for the monolingual and code-mixed utterances.
Our results showed that language preference was reflected in
MLU values: the more children spoke in one language the
higher the MLU was in that language. However, it was the
mixed utterances that had the highest MLU for all three
children. We support the results with a construction type
analysis and suggest a potential usage-based explanation for
these results based on individual differences in each
child's developmental inventory of words and
constructions.},
Doi = {10.1075/lab.17008.qui},
Key = {fds366591}
}
@article{fds366593,
Author = {Quick, AE and Lieven, E and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Identifying partially schematic units in the code-mixing of
an English and German speaking child},
Journal = {Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism},
Volume = {8},
Number = {4},
Pages = {477-501},
Year = {2018},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/lab.15049.qui},
Abstract = {Intra-sentential code-mixing presents a number of puzzles
for theories of bilingualism. In this paper, we examine the
code-mixed English-German utterances of a young
English-German-Spanish trilingual child between 1;10 –
3;1, using both an extensive diary kept by the mother and
audio recordings. We address the interplay between lexical
and syntactic aspects of language use outlined in the
usage-based approach (e.g. Tomasello, 2003). The data
suggest that partially schematic constructions play an
important role in the code-mixing of this child. In
addition, we find, first, that the code-mixing was not
mainly the result of lexical gaps. Second, there was more
mixing of German function words than content words. Third,
code-mixed utterances often consisted of the use of a
partially schematic construction with the open slot filled
by material from the other language. These results raise a
number of important issues for all theoretical approaches to
code mixing, which we discuss.},
Doi = {10.1075/lab.15049.qui},
Key = {fds366593}
}
@article{fds366594,
Author = {Sánchez-Amaro, A and Duguid, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees' understanding of social leverage.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {13},
Number = {12},
Pages = {e0207868},
Year = {2018},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207868},
Abstract = {Social primates can influence others through the control of
resources. For instance, dominant male chimpanzees might
allow subordinates access to mate with females in exchange
for social support. However, little is known about how
chimpanzees strategically use a position of leverage to
maximize their own benefits. We address this question by
presenting dyads of captive chimpanzee (N = 6) with a task
resulting in an unequal reward distribution. To gain the
higher reward each individual should wait for their partner
to act. In addition, one participant had leverage: access to
an alternative secure reward. By varying the presence and
value of the leverage we tested whether individuals used it
strategically (e.g. by waiting longer for partners to act
when they had leverage in the form of alternatives).
Additionally, non-social controls served to show if
chimpanzees understood the social dilemma. We measured the
likelihood to choose the leverage and their latencies to
act. The final decision made by the chimpanzees did not
differ as a function of condition (test versus non-social
control) or the value of the leverage, but they did wait
longer to act when the leverage was smaller-particularly in
test (versus non-social control) trials suggesting that they
understood the conflict of interest involved. The
chimpanzees thus recognized the existence of social
leverage, but did not use it strategically to maximize their
rewards.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0207868},
Key = {fds366594}
}
@article{fds328848,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Gonzalez-Cabrera, I and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children's developing metaethical judgments.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {164},
Pages = {163-177},
Year = {2017},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.008},
Abstract = {Human adults incline toward moral objectivism but may
approach things more relativistically if different cultures
are involved. In this study, 4-, 6-, and 9-year-old children
(N=136) witnessed two parties who disagreed about moral
matters: a normative judge (e.g., judging that it is wrong
to do X) and an antinormative judge (e.g., judging that it
is okay to do X). We assessed children's metaethical
judgment, that is, whether they judged that only one party
(objectivism) or both parties (relativism) could be right.
We found that 9-year-olds, but not younger children, were
more likely to judge that both parties could be right when a
normative ingroup judge disagreed with an antinormative
extraterrestrial judge (with different preferences and
background) than when the antinormative judge was another
ingroup individual. This effect was not found in a
comparison case where parties disagreed about the
possibility of different physical laws. These findings
suggest that although young children often exhibit moral
objectivism, by early school age they begin to temper their
objectivism with culturally relative metaethical
judgments.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.008},
Key = {fds328848}
}
@article{fds326493,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Gonzalez-Cabrera, I},
Title = {The Role of Ontogeny in the Evolution of Human
Cooperation.},
Journal = {Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.)},
Volume = {28},
Number = {3},
Pages = {274-288},
Year = {2017},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-017-9291-1},
Abstract = {To explain the evolutionary emergence of uniquely human
skills and motivations for cooperation, Tomasello et al.
(2012, in Current Anthropology 53(6):673-92) proposed the
interdependence hypothesis. The key adaptive context in this
account was the obligate collaborative foraging of early
human adults. Hawkes (2014, in Human Nature 25(1):28-48),
following Hrdy (Mothers and Others, Harvard University
Press, 2009), provided an alternative account for the
emergence of uniquely human cooperative skills in which the
key was early human infants' attempts to solicit care and
attention from adults in a cooperative breeding context.
Here we attempt to reconcile these two accounts. Our
composite account accepts Hrdy's and Hawkes's contention
that the extremely early emergence of human infants'
cooperative skills suggests an important role for
cooperative breeding as adaptive context, perhaps in early
Homo. But our account also insists that human cooperation
goes well beyond these nascent skills to include such things
as the communicative and cultural conventions, norms, and
institutions created by later Homo and early modern humans
to deal with adult problems of social coordination. As part
of this account we hypothesize how each of the main stages
of human ontogeny (infancy, childhood, adolescence) was
transformed during evolution both by infants' cooperative
skills "migrating up" in age and by adults' cooperative
skills "migrating down" in age.},
Doi = {10.1007/s12110-017-9291-1},
Key = {fds326493}
}
@article{fds320781,
Author = {Hepach, R and Kante, N and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Toddlers Help a Peer.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {88},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1642-1652},
Year = {2017},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12686},
Abstract = {Toddlers are remarkably prosocial toward adults, yet little
is known about their helping behavior toward peers. In the
present study with 18- and 30-month-old toddlers (n = 192,
48 dyads per age group), one child needed help reaching an
object to continue a task that was engaging for both
children. The object was within reach of the second child
who helped significantly more often compared to a no-need
control condition. The helper also fulfilled the peer's need
when the task was engaging only for the child needing help.
These findings suggest that toddlers' skills and motivations
of helping do not depend on having a competent and helpful
recipient, such as an adult, but rather they are much more
flexible and general.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12686},
Key = {fds320781}
}
@article{fds327646,
Author = {Kano, F and Krupenye, C and Hirata, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Submentalizing Cannot Explain Belief-Based Action
Anticipation in Apes.},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {21},
Number = {9},
Pages = {633-634},
Year = {2017},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.011},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2017.06.011},
Key = {fds327646}
}
@article{fds326494,
Author = {Haux, L and Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Do young children preferentially trust gossip or firsthand
observation in choosing a collaborative partner?},
Journal = {Social Development},
Volume = {26},
Number = {3},
Pages = {466-474},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2017},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/sode.12225},
Abstract = {From early on in ontogeny, young children hear things being
said about particular individuals. Here we investigate the
ways in which testimony with social content, that is,
gossip, influences children's decision-making. We explored
whether five-year-old (N = 72) and seven-year-old (N = 72)
children trust gossip or firsthand observation in a partner
choice setting. Seven-year-old children preferentially
trusted what they had seen firsthand over gossip;
five-year-old children, in contrast, did not differentiate
between these two sources of information. However,
five-year-old children (but not seven-year-olds) generally
gave negative information more weight, that is, they showed
a “negativity bias.” These results suggest that at
around school age, young children become more
“epistemically vigilant” about gossip.},
Doi = {10.1111/sode.12225},
Key = {fds326494}
}
@article{fds328849,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Duguid, S and Saur, H and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children, chimpanzees, and bonobos adjust the visibility of
their actions for cooperators and competitors.},
Journal = {Scientific reports},
Volume = {7},
Number = {1},
Pages = {8504},
Year = {2017},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08435-7},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees and bonobos are highly capable of tracking
other's mental states. It has been proposed, however, that
in contrast to humans, chimpanzees are only able to do this
in competitive interactions but this has rarely been
directly tested. Here, pairs of chimpanzees or bonobos
(Study 1) and 4-year-old children (Study 2) were presented
with two almost identical tasks differing only regarding the
social context. In the cooperation condition, players'
interests were matched: they had to make corresponding
choices to be mutually rewarded. To facilitate coordination,
subjects should thus make their actions visible to their
partner whose view was partially occluded. In the
competition condition, players' interests were directly
opposed: the partner tried to match the subject's choice but
subjects were only rewarded if they chose differently, so
that they benefited from hiding their actions. The apes
successfully adapted their decisions to the social context
and their performance was markedly better in the cooperation
condition. Children also distinguished between the two
contexts, but somewhat surprisingly, performed better in the
competitive condition. These findings demonstrate
experimentally that chimpanzees and bonobos can take into
account what others can see in cooperative interactions.
Their social-cognitive skills are thus more flexible than
previously assumed.},
Doi = {10.1038/s41598-017-08435-7},
Key = {fds328849}
}
@article{fds328850,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Clift, JB and Herrmann, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Social disappointment explains chimpanzees' behaviour in the
inequity aversion task.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {284},
Number = {1861},
Pages = {20171502},
Year = {2017},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1502},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees' refusal of less-preferred food when an
experimenter has previously provided preferred food to a
conspecific has been taken as evidence for a sense of
fairness. Here, we present a novel hypothesis-the social
disappointment hypothesis-according to which food refusals
express chimpanzees' disappointment in the human
experimenter for not rewarding them as well as they could
have. We tested this hypothesis using a two-by-two design in
which food was either distributed by an experimenter or a
machine and with a partner present or absent. We found that
chimpanzees were more likely to reject food when it was
distributed by an experimenter rather than by a machine and
that they were not more likely to do so when a partner was
present. These results suggest that chimpanzees' refusal of
less-preferred food stems from social disappointment in the
experimenter and not from a sense of fairness.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2017.1502},
Key = {fds328850}
}
@article{fds320785,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's Intrinsic Motivation to Provide Help Themselves
After Accidentally Harming Others.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {88},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1251-1264},
Year = {2017},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12646},
Abstract = {Little is known about the flexibility of children's
prosocial motivation. Here, 2- and 3-year-old children's
(n = 128) internal arousal, as measured via changes in
pupil dilation, was increased after they accidentally harmed
a victim but were unable to repair the harm. If they were
able to repair (or if they themselves did not cause the harm
and the help was provided by someone else) their arousal
subsided. This suggests that children are especially
motivated to help those whom they have harmed, perhaps out
of a sense of guilt and a desire to reconcile with them.
Young children care not only about the well-being of others
but also about the relationship they have with those who
depend on their help.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12646},
Key = {fds320785}
}
@article{fds325488,
Author = {Kanngiesser, P and Köymen, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children mostly keep, and expect others to keep, their
promises.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {159},
Pages = {140-158},
Year = {2017},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.004},
Abstract = {Promises are speech acts that create an obligation to do the
promised action. In three studies, we investigated whether
3- and 5-year-olds (N=278) understand the normative
implications of promising in prosocial interactions. In
Study 1, children helped a partner who promised to share
stickers. When the partner failed to uphold the promise, 3-
and 5-year-olds protested and referred to promise norms. In
Study 2, when children in this same age range were asked to
promise to continue a cleaning task-and they agreed-they
persisted longer on the task and mentioned their obligation
more frequently than without such a promise. They also
persisted longer after a promise than after a cleaning
reminder (Study 3). In prosocial interactions, thus, young
children feel a normative obligation to keep their promises
and expect others to keep their promises as
well.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.004},
Key = {fds325488}
}
@article{fds327020,
Author = {Schmelz, M and Grueneisen, S and Kabalak, A and Jost, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees return favors at a personal cost.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {114},
Number = {28},
Pages = {7462-7467},
Year = {2017},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1700351114},
Abstract = {Humans regularly provide others with resources at a personal
cost to themselves. Chimpanzees engage in some cooperative
behaviors in the wild as well, but their motivational
underpinnings are unclear. In three experiments, chimpanzees
(<i>Pan troglodytes</i>) always chose between an option
delivering food both to themselves and a partner and one
delivering food only to themselves. In one condition, a
conspecific partner had just previously taken a personal
risk to make this choice available. In another condition, no
assistance from the partner preceded the subject's decision.
Chimpanzees made significantly more prosocial choices after
receiving their partner's assistance than when no assistance
was given (experiment 1) and, crucially, this was the case
even when choosing the prosocial option was materially
costly for the subject (experiment 2). Moreover, subjects
appeared sensitive to the risk of their partner's assistance
and chose prosocially more often when their partner risked
losing food by helping (experiment 3). These findings
demonstrate experimentally that chimpanzees are willing to
incur a material cost to deliver rewards to a conspecific,
but only if that conspecific previously assisted them, and
particularly when this assistance was risky. Some key
motivations involved in human cooperation thus may have
deeper phylogenetic roots than previously
suspected.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1700351114},
Key = {fds327020}
}
@article{fds326490,
Author = {Sánchez-Amaro, A and Duguid, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees, bonobos, and children successfully coordinate
in conflict situations.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences},
Volume = {284},
Number = {1856},
Publisher = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences},
Year = {2017},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0259},
Abstract = {Social animals need to coordinate with others to reap the
benefits of group-living even when individuals’ interests
are misaligned. We compare how chimpanzees, bonobos and
children coordinate their actions with a conspecific in a
Snowdrift game, which provides a model for understanding how
organisms coordinate and make decisions under conflict. In
study 1, we presented pairs of chimpanzees, bonobos and
children with an unequal reward distribution. In the
critical condition, the preferred reward could only be
obtained by waiting for the partner to act, with the risk
that if no one acted, both would lose the rewards. Apes and
children successfully coordinated to obtain the rewards.
Children used a ‘both-partner-pull’ strategy and
communicated during the task, while some apes relied on an
‘only-one-partner-pulls’ strategy to solve the task,
although there were also signs of strategic behaviour as
they waited for their partner to pull when that strategy led
to the preferred reward. In study 2, we presented pairs of
chimpanzees and bonobos with the same set-up as in study 1
with the addition of a non-social option that provided them
with a secure reward. In this situation, apes had to
actively decide between the unequal distribution and the
alternative. In this set-up, apes maximized their rewards by
taking their partners’ potential actions into account. In
conclusion, children and apes showed clear instances of
strategic decision-making to maximize their own rewards
while maintaining successful coordination.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2017.0259},
Key = {fds326490}
}
@article{fds326491,
Author = {Hardecker, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {From imitation to implementation: How two- and
three-year-old children learn to enforce social
norms.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {35},
Number = {2},
Pages = {237-248},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2017},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12159},
Abstract = {Young children enforce social norms from early on, but
little research has examined how this enforcement behaviour
emerges. This study investigated whether observing an
adult's norm enforcement influences children's own
enforcement of that norm compared with observing an action
demonstration without enforcement. Additionally, children
experienced enforcement either following their own
(second-party) or a third-party's transgression (N = 120).
Results revealed that observing enforcement increased two-
and three-year-old children's protest against the sanctioned
action regardless of second- or third-party context.
However, only three-year-olds generalized their enforcement
to a novel action not matching the norm, whereas
two-year-olds only protested against the previously
sanctioned action. Importantly, without any enforcement
demonstration, two-year-olds rarely protested at all while
three-year-olds did so quite frequently. Thus, providing an
opportunity to imitate enforcement seems to give rise to
enforcement behaviour in two-year-olds while three-year-olds
already understand normative implications following a
variety of cues and even apply norm enforcement without any
demonstration of how to do it. Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject? Children conform to
social norms from early in development. Young children from
2 to 3 years of age also enforce social norms on third
parties. What does this study add? Observing enforcement by
an adult increases two- and three-year-olds' protest against
the sanctioned action. It does not matter whether children
experienced enforcement on their own or a third party's
action. Three-, but not two-year-olds, generalize their
enforcement to novel actions that do not match the
norm.},
Doi = {10.1111/bjdp.12159},
Key = {fds326491}
}
@article{fds326492,
Author = {Rapp, DJ and Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The impact of choice on young children's prosocial
motivation.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {158},
Pages = {112-121},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2017},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.01.004},
Abstract = {The current study explored how freedom of choice affects
preschoolers' prosocial motivation. Children (3- and
5-year-olds) participated in either a choice condition
(where they could decide for themselves whether to help or
not) or a no-choice condition (where they were instructed to
help). Prosocial motivation was subsequently assessed by
measuring the amount children helped an absent peer in the
face of an attractive alternative game. The 5-year-olds
provided with choice helped more than the children not
provided with choice, and this effect was stronger for girls
than for boys. There was no difference between conditions
for the 3-year-olds. These results highlight the importance
of choice in young children's prosocial development.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2017.01.004},
Key = {fds326492}
}
@article{fds320783,
Author = {Hardecker, S and Schmidt, MFH and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children’s Developing Understanding of the Conventionality
of Rules},
Journal = {Journal of Cognition and Development},
Volume = {18},
Number = {2},
Pages = {163-188},
Publisher = {Informa UK Limited},
Year = {2017},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2016.1255624},
Abstract = {Much research has investigated how children relate to norms
taught to them by adult authorities. Very few studies have
investigated norms that arise out of children’s own peer
interactions. In two studies, we investigated how 5- and
7-year-old children teach, enforce, and understand rules
that they either created themselves or were taught by an
adult. Children (N = 240) were asked to either invent game
rules on their own or were taught these exact same rules by
an adult (yoked design). Children of both ages enforced and
transmitted the rules in a normative way, regardless of
whether they had invented them or were taught the rules by
an adult, suggesting that they viewed even their own
self-made rules as normatively binding. However, creating
the rules led 5-year-old children to understand them as much
more changeable as compared with adult-taught rules.
Seven-year-olds, in contrast, regarded both kinds of rules
as equally changeable, indeed allowing fewer changes to
their self-created rules than 5-year-olds. While the process
of creating rules seemed to enlighten preschoolers’
understanding of the conventionality of the rules,
school-aged children regarded both self-created rules and
adult-taught rules in a similar manner, suggesting a deeper
understanding of rule normativity as arising from social
agreement and commitment.},
Doi = {10.1080/15248372.2016.1255624},
Key = {fds320783}
}
@article{fds320782,
Author = {Ulber, J and Hamann, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children, but not chimpanzees, are averse to
disadvantageous and advantageous inequities.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {155},
Pages = {48-66},
Year = {2017},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.10.013},
Abstract = {The age at which young children show an aversion to
inequitable resource distributions, especially those
favoring themselves, is unclear. It is also unclear whether
great apes, as humans' nearest evolutionary relatives, have
an aversion to inequitable resource distributions at all.
Using a common methodology across species and child ages,
the current two studies found that 3- and 4-year-old
children (N=64) not only objected when they received less
than a collaborative partner but also sacrificed to equalize
when they received more. They did neither of these things in
a nonsocial situation, demonstrating the fundamental role of
social comparison. In contrast, chimpanzees (N=9) showed no
aversion to inequitable distributions, only a concern for
maximizing their own resources, with no differences between
social and nonsocial conditions. These results underscore
the unique importance for humans, even early in ontogeny,
for treating others fairly, presumably as a way of becoming
a cooperative member of one's cultural group.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2016.10.013},
Key = {fds320782}
}
@article{fds325489,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children coordinate in a recurrent social dilemma by taking
turns and along dominance asymmetries.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {53},
Number = {2},
Pages = {265-273},
Year = {2017},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000236},
Abstract = {Humans constantly have to coordinate their decisions with
others even when their interests are conflicting (e.g., when
2 drivers have to decide who yields at an intersection). So
far, however, little is known about the development of these
abilities. Here, we present dyads of 5-year-olds (N = 40)
with a repeated chicken game using a novel methodology: Two
children each steered an automated toy train carrying a
reward. The trains simultaneously moved toward each other so
that in order to avoid a crash-which left both children
empty-handed-1 train had to swerve. By swerving, however,
the trains lost a portion of the rewards so that it was in
each child's interest to go straight. Children coordinated
their decisions successfully over multiple rounds, and they
mostly did so by taking turns at swerving. In dyads in which
turn-taking was rare, dominant children obtained
significantly higher payoffs than their partners. Moreover,
the coordination process was more efficient in turn-taking
dyads as indicated by a significant reduction in conflicts
and verbal protest. These findings indicate that already by
the late preschool years children can independently
coordinate decisions with peers in recurrent conflicts of
interest. (PsycINFO Database Record},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000236},
Key = {fds325489}
}
@article{fds329018,
Author = {Krupenye, C and Kano, F and Hirata, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {A test of the submentalizing hypothesis: Apes' performance
in a false belief task inanimate control.},
Journal = {Communicative & integrative biology},
Volume = {10},
Number = {4},
Pages = {e1343771},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420889.2017.1343771},
Abstract = {Much debate concerns whether any nonhuman animals share with
humans the ability to infer others' mental states, such as
desires and beliefs. In a recent eye-tracking false-belief
task, we showed that great apes correctly anticipated that a
human actor would search for a goal object where he had last
seen it, even though the apes themselves knew that it was no
longer there. In response, Heyes proposed that apes' looking
behavior was guided not by social cognitive mechanisms but
rather domain-general cueing effects, and suggested the use
of inanimate controls to test this alternative
submentalizing hypothesis. In the present study, we
implemented the suggested inanimate control of our previous
false-belief task. Apes attended well to key events but
showed markedly fewer anticipatory looks and no significant
tendency to look to the correct location. We thus found no
evidence that submentalizing was responsible for apes'
anticipatory looks in our false-belief task.},
Doi = {10.1080/19420889.2017.1343771},
Key = {fds329018}
}
@article{fds322245,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The fulfillment of others' needs elevates children's body
posture.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {53},
Number = {1},
Pages = {100-113},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000173},
Abstract = {Much is known about young children's helping behavior, but
little is known about the underlying motivations and
emotions involved. In 2 studies we found that 2-year-old
children showed positive emotions of similar magnitude-as
measured by changes in their postural elevation using depth
sensor imaging technology-after they achieved a goal for
themselves and after they helped another person achieve her
goal. Conversely, children's posture decreased in elevation
when their actions did not result in a positive outcome.
These results suggest that for young children, working for
themselves and helping others are similarly rewarding.
(PsycINFO Database Record},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000173},
Key = {fds322245}
}
@article{fds326212,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Buttelmann, F and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Great apes distinguish true from false beliefs in an
interactive helping task.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {12},
Number = {4},
Pages = {e0173793},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173793},
Abstract = {Understanding the behavior of others in a wide variety of
circumstances requires an understanding of their
psychological states. Humans' nearest primate relatives, the
great apes, understand many psychological states of others,
for example, perceptions, goals, and desires. However, so
far there is little evidence that they possess the key
marker of advanced human social cognition: an understanding
of false beliefs. Here we demonstrate that in a nonverbal
(implicit) false-belief test which is passed by human
1-year-old infants, great apes as a group, including
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), bonobos (Pan paniscus), and
orangutans (Pongo abelii), distinguish between true and
false beliefs in their helping behavior. Great apes thus may
possess at least some basic understanding that an agent's
actions are based on her beliefs about reality. Hence, such
understanding might not be the exclusive province of the
human species.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0173793},
Key = {fds326212}
}
@article{fds351576,
Author = {Hepach, R and Haberl, K and Lambert, S and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Toddlers Help Anonymously},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {22},
Number = {1},
Pages = {130-145},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/infa.12143},
Abstract = {Young children are extremely motivated to help others, but
it is not clear whether they do so in anonymous situations
without social recognition. In two studies, we found that
18-month-old toddlers provided help equally in situations
where an adult recipient was present and in situations
where an adult recipient was not present. We included
several control conditions to rule out that toddlers were
simply unaware of their anonymity or were merely motivated
to restore the physical order of things. Together, these
findings suggest that early in ontogeny children are
motivated to help others in need regardless of whether they
can immediately be recognized for their prosocial
intentions.},
Doi = {10.1111/infa.12143},
Key = {fds351576}
}
@article{fds351577,
Author = {Schmid, B and Karg, K and Perner, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Great apes are sensitive to prior reliability of an
informant in a gaze following task.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {12},
Number = {11},
Pages = {e0187451},
Year = {2017},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187451},
Abstract = {Social animals frequently rely on information from other
individuals. This can be costly in case the other individual
is mistaken or even deceptive. Human infants below 4 years
of age show proficiency in their reliance on differently
reliable informants. They can infer the reliability of an
informant from few interactions and use that assessment in
later interactions with the same informant in a different
context. To explore whether great apes share that ability,
in our study we confronted great apes with a reliable or
unreliable informant in an object choice task, to see
whether that would in a subsequent task affect their gaze
following behaviour in response to the same informant. In
our study, prior reliability of the informant and
habituation during the gaze following task affected both
great apes' automatic gaze following response and their more
deliberate response of gaze following behind barriers. As
habituation is very context specific, it is unlikely that
habituation in the reliability task affected the gaze
following task. Rather it seems that apes employ a
reliability tracking strategy that results in a general
avoidance of additional information from an unreliable
informant.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0187451},
Key = {fds351577}
}
@article{fds351578,
Author = {Haun, DBM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How to Compare Across Species.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {27},
Number = {12},
Pages = {1670-1672},
Year = {2016},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616671336},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797616671336},
Key = {fds351578}
}
@article{fds320786,
Author = {Vaish, A and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Early Emergence of Guilt-Motivated Prosocial
Behavior.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {87},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1772-1782},
Year = {2016},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12628},
Abstract = {Guilt serves vital prosocial functions: It motivates
transgressors to make amends, thus restoring damaged
relationships. Previous developmental research on guilt has
not clearly distinguished it from sympathy for a victim or a
tendency to repair damage in general. The authors tested 2-
and 3-year-old children (N = 62 and 64, respectively) in a
2 × 2 design, varying whether or not a mishap caused harm
to someone and whether children themselves caused that
mishap. Three-year-olds showed greatest reparative behavior
when they had caused the mishap and it caused harm, thus
showing a specific effect of guilt. Two-year-olds repaired
more whenever harm was caused, no matter by whom, thus
showing only an effect of sympathy. Guilt as a distinct
motivator of prosocial behavior thus emerges by at least
3 years.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12628},
Key = {fds320786}
}
@article{fds320787,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Grossmann, T and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young Children Want to See Others Get the Help They
Need.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {87},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1703-1714},
Year = {2016},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12633},
Abstract = {Children's instrumental helping has sometimes been
interpreted as a desire to complete action sequences or to
restore the physical order of things. Two-year-old children
(n = 51) selectively retrieved for an adult the object he
needed rather than one he did not (but which equally served
to restore the previous order of things), and those with
greater internal arousal (i.e., pupil dilation) were faster
to help. In a second experiment (n = 64), children's
arousal increased when they witnessed an adult respond
inappropriately to another adult's need. This was not the
case in a nonsocial control condition. These findings
suggest that children's helping is not aimed at restoring
the order of things but rather at seeing another person's
need fulfilled.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12633},
Key = {fds320787}
}
@article{fds320784,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How chimpanzees cooperate: If dominance is artificially
constrained.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {113},
Number = {44},
Pages = {E6728-E6729},
Year = {2016},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1614378113},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1614378113},
Key = {fds320784}
}
@article{fds351579,
Author = {Bohn, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The role of past interactions in great apes' communication
about absent entities.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {130},
Number = {4},
Pages = {351-357},
Year = {2016},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0000042},
Abstract = {Recent evidence suggests that great apes can use the former
location of an entity to communicate about it. In this study
we built on these findings to investigate the
social-cognitive foundations of great apes' communicative
abilities. We tested whether great apes (n = 35) would
adjust their requests for absent entities to previous
interactions they had with their interlocutor. We
manipulated the apes' experience with respect to the
interlocutor's knowledge about the previous content of the
now-empty location as well as their experience with the
interlocutor's competence to provide additional food items.
We found that apes adjusted their requests to both of these
aspects but failed to integrate them with one another. These
results demonstrate a surprising amount of flexibility in
great apes' communicative abilities while at the same time
suggesting some important limitations in their social
communicative skills. (PsycINFO Database
Record},
Doi = {10.1037/com0000042},
Key = {fds351579}
}
@article{fds351580,
Author = {Brandt, S and Buttelmann, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children's understanding of first- and third-person
perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief
tasks.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {151},
Pages = {131-143},
Year = {2016},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.004},
Abstract = {De Villiers (Lingua, 2007, Vol. 117, pp. 1858-1878) and
others have claimed that children come to understand false
belief as they acquire linguistic constructions for
representing a proposition and the speaker's epistemic
attitude toward that proposition. In the current study,
English-speaking children of 3 and 4years of age (N=64) were
asked to interpret propositional attitude constructions with
a first- or third-person subject of the propositional
attitude (e.g., "I think the sticker is in the red box" or
"The cow thinks the sticker is in the red box",
respectively). They were also assessed for an understanding
of their own and others' false beliefs. We found that
4-year-olds showed a better understanding of both
third-person propositional attitude constructions and false
belief than their younger peers. No significant
developmental differences were found for first-person
propositional attitude constructions. The older children
also showed a better understanding of their own false
beliefs than of others' false beliefs. In addition,
regression analyses suggest that the older children's
comprehension of their own false beliefs was mainly related
to their understanding of third-person propositional
attitude constructions. These results indicate that we need
to take a closer look at the propositional attitude
constructions that are supposed to support children's
false-belief reasoning. Children may come to understand
their own and others' beliefs in different ways, and this
may affect both their use and understanding of propositional
attitude constructions and their performance in various
types of false-belief tasks.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.004},
Key = {fds351580}
}
@article{fds320788,
Author = {Krupenye, C and Kano, F and Hirata, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Great apes anticipate that other individuals will act
according to false beliefs.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {354},
Number = {6308},
Pages = {110-114},
Year = {2016},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf8110},
Abstract = {Humans operate with a "theory of mind" with which they are
able to understand that others' actions are driven not by
reality but by beliefs about reality, even when those
beliefs are false. Although great apes share with humans
many social-cognitive skills, they have repeatedly failed
experimental tests of such false-belief understanding. We
use an anticipatory looking test (originally developed for
human infants) to show that three species of great apes
reliably look in anticipation of an agent acting on a
location where he falsely believes an object to be, even
though the apes themselves know that the object is no longer
there. Our results suggest that great apes also operate, at
least on an implicit level, with an understanding of false
beliefs.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.aaf8110},
Key = {fds320788}
}
@article{fds320789,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {In Memoriam: Jerome Seymour Bruner [1915–2016]},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {155},
Pages = {iii-iv},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2016},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.07.013},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2016.07.013},
Key = {fds320789}
}
@article{fds321683,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Butler, LP and Heinz, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young Children See a Single Action and Infer a Social
Norm.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {27},
Number = {10},
Pages = {1360-1370},
Publisher = {SAGE Publications},
Year = {2016},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616661182},
Abstract = {Human social life depends heavily on social norms that
prescribe and proscribe specific actions. Typically, young
children learn social norms from adult instruction. In the
work reported here, we showed that this is not the whole
story: Three-year-old children are promiscuous normativists.
In other words, they spontaneously inferred the presence of
social norms even when an adult had done nothing to indicate
such a norm in either language or behavior. And children of
this age even went so far as to enforce these self-inferred
norms when third parties "broke" them. These results suggest
that children do not just passively acquire social norms
from adult behavior and instruction; rather, they have a
natural and proactive tendency to go from "is" to "ought."
That is, children go from observed actions to prescribed
actions and do not perceive them simply as guidelines for
their own behavior but rather as objective normative rules
applying to everyone equally.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797616661182},
Key = {fds321683}
}
@article{fds351581,
Author = {Over, H and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do young children accept responsibility for the negative
actions of ingroup members?},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {40},
Pages = {24-32},
Year = {2016},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2016.08.004},
Abstract = {This study investigated whether young children accept
responsibility for the negative actions of ingroup members.
Five-year-old children watched a transgressor break someone
else's valued possession. Depending on condition, this
transgressor either belonged to the same group as the child
or a different group from the child. Coding of children's
nonverbal behaviour indicated that they displayed more signs
of guilt (but not other negative emotions) when the
transgressor belonged to their own group than the other
group. Furthermore, when the transgressor belonged to their
own group, children were more likely to say that their own
group should apologise for the damage and that they
themselves should try to repair the broken object.
Children's connections to their groups are thus so profound
that they appear to feel responsible for the negative
actions of their group members even when they had no
personal involvement in the harm those actions
caused.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2016.08.004},
Key = {fds351581}
}
@article{fds351582,
Author = {Ibbotson, P and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Language in a New Key.},
Journal = {Scientific American},
Volume = {315},
Number = {5},
Pages = {70-75},
Year = {2016},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1116-70},
Doi = {10.1038/scientificamerican1116-70},
Key = {fds351582}
}
@article{fds351583,
Author = {Hardecker, S and Schmidt, MFH and Roden, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's behavioral and emotional responses to
different social norm violations.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {150},
Pages = {364-379},
Year = {2016},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.06.012},
Abstract = {From an early age, children can talk meaningfully about
differences between moral and conventional norms. But does
their understanding of these differences manifest itself in
their actual behavioral and emotional reactions to norm
violations? And do children discriminate between norm
violations that affect either themselves or a third party?
Two studies (N=224) were conducted in which children
observed conventional game rule violations and moral
transgressions that either disadvantaged themselves directly
or disadvantaged an absent third party. Results revealed
that 3- and 5-year-olds evaluated both conventional and
moral transgressions as normative breaches and protested
against them. However, 5-year-olds also clearly
discriminated these types of transgressions along further
dimensions in that (a) they tattled largely on the moral
violation and less on the conventional violation and (b)
they showed stronger emotional reactions to moral violations
compared to conventional violations. The 3-year-olds'
responses to moral and conventional transgressions, however,
were less discriminatory, and these younger children
responded rather similarly to both kinds of violations.
Importantly, most children intervened both as victims of the
transgression and as unaffected third parties alike,
providing strong evidence for their agent-neutral
understanding of social norms.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2016.06.012},
Key = {fds351583}
}
@article{fds320790,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Jerome Seymour Bruner [1915-2016].},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {43},
Number = {5},
Pages = {967-968},
Year = {2016},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000916000374},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000916000374},
Key = {fds320790}
}
@article{fds351584,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Preschoolers affect others' reputations through prosocial
gossip.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {34},
Number = {3},
Pages = {447-460},
Year = {2016},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12143},
Abstract = {Providing evaluative information to others about absent
third parties helps them to identify cooperators and avoid
cheaters. Here, we show that 5-year-olds, but not
3-year-olds, reliably engage in such prosocial gossip. In an
experimental setting, 5-year-old children spontaneously
offered relevant reputational information to guide a peer
towards a cooperative partner. Three-year-old children
offered such evaluative information only rarely, although
they still showed a willingness to inform in a
non-evaluative manner. A follow-up study revealed that one
component involved in this age difference is children's
developing ability to provide justifications. The current
results extend previous work on young children's tendency to
manage their own reputation by showing that preschoolers
also influence others' reputations via gossip.},
Doi = {10.1111/bjdp.12143},
Key = {fds351584}
}
@article{fds323256,
Author = {Vaish, A and Herrmann, E and Markmann, C and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Preschoolers value those who sanction non-cooperators.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {153},
Pages = {43-51},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2016},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.04.011},
Abstract = {Large-scale human cooperation among unrelated individuals
requires the enforcement of social norms. However, such
enforcement poses a problem because non-enforcers can free
ride on others' costly and risky enforcement. One solution
is that enforcers receive benefits relative to
non-enforcers. Here we show that this solution becomes
functional during the preschool years: 5-year-old (but not
4-year-old) children judged enforcers of norms more
positively, preferred enforcers, and distributed more
resources to enforcers than to non-enforcers. The ability to
sustain not only first-order but also second-order
cooperation thus emerges quite early in human ontogeny,
providing a viable solution to the problem of higher-order
cooperation.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2016.04.011},
Key = {fds323256}
}
@article{fds340136,
Author = {Melis, A and Grocke, P and Kalbitz, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {One for you, one for me: Humans' unique turn-taking
skills},
Journal = {Psychological Science},
Volume = {27},
Number = {7},
Pages = {987-996},
Publisher = {Association for Psychological Science},
Year = {2016},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616644070},
Abstract = {Long-term collaborative relationships require that any
jointly produced resources be shared in mutually
satisfactory ways. Prototypically, this sharing involves
partners dividing up simultaneously available resources, but
sometimes the collaboration makes a resource available to
only one individual, and any sharing of resources must take
place across repeated instances over time. Here, we show
that beginning at 5 years of age, human children stabilize
cooperation in such cases by taking turns across instances
of obtaining a resource. In contrast, chimpanzees do not
take turns in this way, and so their collaboration tends to
disintegrate over time. Alternating turns in obtaining a
collaboratively produced resource does not necessarily
require a prosocial concern for the other, but rather
requires only a strategic judgment that partners need
incentives to continue collaborating. These results suggest
that human beings are adapted for thinking strategically in
ways that sustain long-term cooperative relationships and
that are absent in their nearest primate
relatives.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797616644070},
Key = {fds340136}
}
@article{fds323257,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Rapp, DJ and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children (sometimes) do the right thing even when
their peers do not},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {39},
Pages = {86-92},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2016},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2016.04.004},
Abstract = {Children must sometimes decide between conforming to peer
behavior and doing what is right. While research shows that
children have a strong inclination to act prosocially and to
help conspecifics in need, many studies also demonstrate
that children tend to adopt peer behavior. In two studies (N
= 96), we investigated whether children would conform to an
antisocial majority or, whether they would do the right
thing even under peer pressure. Results show that if a
recipient is in need, 5-year-old children act prosocially in
two different contexts even when there is a strong selfish
incentive not to. However, once the severity of the
recipient's need is reduced, children conform to the
antisocial group. The current studies suggest that
children's prosocial motivation sometimes wins out against
more selfish drives.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2016.04.004},
Key = {fds323257}
}
@article{fds351585,
Author = {Ulber, J and Hamann, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Extrinsic Rewards Diminish Costly Sharing in
3-Year-Olds.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {87},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1192-1203},
Year = {2016},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12534},
Abstract = {Two studies investigated the influence of external rewards
and social praise in young children's fairness-related
behavior. The motivation of ninety-six 3-year-olds' to
equalize unfair resource allocations was measured in three
scenarios (collaboration, windfall, and dictator game)
following three different treatments (material reward,
verbal praise, and neutral response). In all scenarios,
children's willingness to engage in costly sharing was
negatively influenced when they had received a reward for
equal sharing during treatment than when they had received
praise or no reward. The negative effect of material rewards
was not due to subjects responding in kind to their
partner's termination of rewards. These results provide new
evidence for the intrinsic motivation of prosociality-in
this case, costly sharing behavior-in preschool
children.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12534},
Key = {fds351585}
}
@article{fds351586,
Author = {Sánchez-Amaro, A and Duguid, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees coordinate in a snowdrift game},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {116},
Pages = {61-74},
Year = {2016},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.03.030},
Abstract = {The snowdrift game is a model for studying social
coordination in the context of competing interests. We
presented pairs of chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, with a
situation in which they could either pull a weighted tray
together or pull alone to obtain food. Ultimately
chimpanzees should coordinate their actions because if no
one pulled, they would both lose the reward. There were two
experimental manipulations: the tray's weight (low or high
weight condition) and the time to solve the dilemma before
the rewards became inaccessible (40 s or 10 s). When the
costs were high (i.e. high weight condition), chimpanzees
waited longer to act. Cooperation tended to increase in
frequency across sessions. The pulling effort invested in
the task also became more skewed between subjects. The
subjects also adjusted their behaviour by changing their
pulling effort for different partners. These results
demonstrate that chimpanzees can coordinate their actions in
situations where there is a conflict of interest.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2016.03.030},
Key = {fds351586}
}
@article{fds351587,
Author = {Butler, LP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two- and 3-year-olds integrate linguistic and pedagogical
cues in guiding inductive generalization and
exploration.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {145},
Pages = {64-78},
Year = {2016},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.12.001},
Abstract = {Young children can in principle make generic inferences
(e.g., "doffels are magnetic") on the basis of their own
individual experience. Recent evidence, however, shows that
by 4 years of age children make strong generic inferences on
the basis of a single pedagogical demonstration with an
individual (e.g., an adult demonstrates for the child that a
single "doffel" is magnetic). In the current experiments, we
extended this to look at younger children, investigating how
the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are integrated
with other aspects of inductive inference during early
development. We found that both 2- and 3-year-olds used
pedagogical cues to guide such generic inferences, but only
so long as the "doffel" was linguistically labeled. In a
follow-up study, 3-year-olds, but not 2-year-olds, continued
to make this generic inference even if the word "doffel" was
uttered incidentally and non-referentially in a context
preceding the pedagogical demonstration, thereby simply
marking the opportunity to learn about a culturally
important category. By 3 years of age, then, young children
show a remarkable ability to flexibly combine different
sources of culturally relevant information (e.g., linguistic
labeling, pedagogy) to make the kinds of generic inferences
so central in human cultural learning.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.12.001},
Key = {fds351587}
}
@article{fds351588,
Author = {Zeidler, H and Herrmann, E and B M Haun and D and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Taking Turns or Not? Children's Approach to Limited Resource
Problems in Three Different Cultures.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {87},
Number = {3},
Pages = {677-688},
Year = {2016},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12505},
Abstract = {Some problems of resource distribution can be solved on
equal terms only by taking turns. We presented such a
problem to 168 pairs of 5- to 10-year-old children from one
Western and two non-Western societies (German, Samburu,
Kikuyu). Almost all German pairs solved the problem by
taking turns immediately, resulting in an equal distribution
of resources throughout the game. In the other groups, one
child usually monopolized the resource in Trial 1 and
sometimes let the partner monopolize it in Trial 2,
resulting in an equal distribution in only half the dyads.
These results suggest that turn-taking is not a natural
strategy uniformly across human cultures, but rather that
different cultures use it to different degrees and in
different contexts.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12505},
Key = {fds351588}
}
@article{fds351589,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cultural Learning Redux.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {87},
Number = {3},
Pages = {643-653},
Year = {2016},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12499},
Abstract = {M. Tomasello, A. Kruger, and H. Ratner (1993) proposed a
theory of cultural learning comprising imitative learning,
instructed learning, and collaborative learning. Empirical
and theoretical advances in the past 20 years suggest
modifications to the theory; for example, children do not
just imitate but overimitate in order to identify and
affiliate with others in their cultural group, children
learn from pedagogy not just episodic facts but the generic
structure of their cultural worlds, and children
collaboratively co-construct with those in their culture
normative rules for doing things. In all, human children do
not just culturally learn useful instrumental activities and
information, they conform to the normative expectations of
the cultural group and even contribute themselves to the
creation of such normative expectations.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12499},
Key = {fds351589}
}
@article{fds351590,
Author = {Karg, K and Schmelz, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Differing views: Can chimpanzees do Level 2
perspective-taking?},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {19},
Number = {3},
Pages = {555-564},
Year = {2016},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-0956-7},
Abstract = {Although chimpanzees understand what others may see, it is
unclear whether they understand how others see things (Level
2 perspective-taking). We investigated whether chimpanzees
can predict the behavior of a conspecific which is holding a
mistaken perspective that differs from their own. The
subject competed with a conspecific over two food sticks.
While the subject could see that both were the same size, to
the competitor one appeared bigger than the other. In a
previously established game, the competitor chose one stick
in private first and the subject chose thereafter, without
knowing which of the sticks was gone. Chimpanzees and
6-year-old children chose the 'riskier' stick (that looked
bigger to the competitor) significantly less in the game
than in a nonsocial control. Children chose randomly in the
control, thus showing Level 2 perspective-taking skills; in
contrast, chimpanzees had a preference for the 'riskier'
stick here, rendering it possible that they attributed their
own preference to the competitor to predict her choice. We
thus run a follow-up in which chimpanzees did not have a
preference in the control. Now, they also chose randomly in
the game. We conclude that chimpanzees solved the task by
attributing their own preference to the other, while
children truly understood the other's mistaken
perspective.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-016-0956-7},
Key = {fds351590}
}
@article{fds351591,
Author = {Brandt, S and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {German Children’s Use of Word Order and Case Marking to
Interpret Simple and Complex Sentences: Testing Differences
Between Constructions and Lexical Items},
Journal = {Language Learning and Development},
Volume = {12},
Number = {2},
Pages = {156-182},
Year = {2016},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2015.1052448},
Abstract = {ABSTRACT: Children and adults follow cues such as case
marking and word order in their assignment of semantic roles
in simple transitives (e.g., the dog chased the cat). It has
been suggested that the same cues are used for the
interpretation of complex sentences, such as transitive
relative clauses (RCs) (e.g., that’s the dog that chased
the cat) (Bates, Devescovi, & D’Amico, 1999). We used a
pointing paradigm to test German-speaking 3-, 4-, and
6-year-old children’s sensitivity to case marking and word
order in their interpretation of simple transitives and
transitive RCs. In Experiment 1, case marking was ambiguous.
The only cue available was word order. In Experiment 2, case
was marked on lexical NPs or demonstrative pronouns. In
Experiment 3, case was marked on lexical NPs or personal
pronouns. Whereas the younger children mainly followed word
order, the older children were more likely to base their
interpretations on the more reliable case-marking cue. In
most cases, children from both age groups were more likely
to use these cues in their interpretation of simple
transitives than in their interpretation of transitive RCs.
Finally, children paid more attention to nominative case
when it was marked on first-person personal pronouns than
when it was marked on third-person lexical NPs or
demonstrative pronouns, such as der Löwe ‘the-NOM lion’
or der ‘he-NOM.’ They were able to successfully
integrate this case-marking cue in their sentence processing
even when it appeared late in the sentence. We discuss four
potential reasons for these differences across development,
constructions, and lexical items. (1) Older children are
relatively more sensitive to cue reliability. (2) Word order
is more reliable in simple transitives than in transitive
RCs. (3) The processing of case marking might initially be
item-specific. (4) The processing of case marking might
depend on its saliency and position in the
sentence.},
Doi = {10.1080/15475441.2015.1052448},
Key = {fds351591}
}
@article{fds323843,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The ontogeny of cultural learning},
Journal = {Current Opinion in Psychology},
Volume = {8},
Pages = {1-4},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2016},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.008},
Abstract = {All primates engage in one or another form of social
learning. Humans engage in cultural learning. From very
early in ontogeny human infants and young children do not
just learn useful things from others, they conform to others
in order to affiliate with them and to identify with the
cultural group. The cultural group normatively expects such
conformity, and adults actively instruct children so as to
ensure it. Young children learn from this instruction how
the world is viewed and how it works in their culture. These
special forms of cultural learning enable powerful and
species-unique processes of cumulative cultural
evolution.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.008},
Key = {fds323843}
}
@article{fds323258,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Hardecker, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Preschoolers understand the normativity of cooperatively
structured competition.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {143},
Pages = {34-47},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2016},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.10.014},
Abstract = {Human institutional practices often involve competition
within a cooperative structure of mutually accepted rules.
In a competitive game, for instance, we not only expect
adherence to the rules of the game but also expect an
opponent who tries to win and, thus, follows a rational
game-playing strategy. We had 3- and 5-year-olds (N=48) play
for a prize against an opponent (a puppet) who played either
rationally (trying to win) or irrationally (helping the
children to win) while either following or breaking the
rules of the game. Both age groups performed costly protest
against an opponent who followed the rules but played
irrationally by helping the children to win. When facing a
rule-breaking opponent, 3-year-olds protested only the rule
breaches of an irrational opponent but not irrational play.
Five-year-olds also protested the rule breaches of a
rational opponent, but in contrast to the 3-year-olds, they
protested irrational behavior even in the context of rule
breaches. Moreover, many children, in particular
3-year-olds, refrained from protesting. These findings
suggest that 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, fully
understand the dual-level normative structure of
cooperatively regulated competition.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.10.014},
Key = {fds323258}
}
@article{fds323259,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Rakoczy, H and Mietzsch, T and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young Children Understand the Role of Agreement in
Establishing Arbitrary Norms-But Unanimity Is
Key.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {87},
Number = {2},
Pages = {612-626},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2016},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12510},
Abstract = {Human cultural groups value conformity to arbitrary norms
(e.g., rituals, games) that are the result of collective
"agreement." Ninety-six 3-year-olds had the opportunity to
agree upon arbitrary norms with puppets. Results revealed
that children normatively enforced these novel norms only on
a deviator who had actually entered into the agreement (not
on dissenting or ignorant individuals). Interestingly, any
dissent during the norm-setting process (even if a majority
of 90% preferred one course of action) prevented children
from seeing a norm as established for anyone at all. These
findings suggest that even young children understand
something of the role of agreement in establishing mutually
binding social norms, but that their notion of norm
formation may be confined to conditions of
unanimity.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12510},
Key = {fds323259}
}
@article{fds351592,
Author = {Köymen, B and Mammen, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Preschoolers use common ground in their justificatory
reasoning with peers.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {52},
Number = {3},
Pages = {423-429},
Year = {2016},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000089},
Abstract = {In the context of joint decision-making, we investigated
whether preschoolers alter the informativeness of their
justifications depending on the common ground that they
share with their partner. Pairs of 3- and 5-year-olds (N =
146) were introduced to a novel animal with unique
characteristics (e.g., eating rocks). In the common ground
condition, the children learned about the animal together.
In the one-expert condition, one learned about it, the other
was naïve. In the two-experts condition, children learned
about it separately. Later, the pairs had to decide together
on 3 items that the novel animal might need. Both age groups
referred to the unique characteristics of the animal in
their justifications more in the 2 conditions without common
ground than in the common ground condition. Thus,
preschoolers begin to use common ground flexibly in their
justifications and reason-giving in peer
interactions.},
Doi = {10.1037/dev0000089},
Key = {fds351592}
}
@article{fds351593,
Author = {Bohn, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Comprehension of iconic gestures by chimpanzees and human
children.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {142},
Pages = {1-17},
Year = {2016},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.001},
Abstract = {Iconic gestures-communicative acts using hand or body
movements that resemble their referent-figure prominently in
theories of language evolution and development. This study
contrasted the abilities of chimpanzees (N=11) and
4-year-old human children (N=24) to comprehend novel iconic
gestures. Participants learned to retrieve rewards from
apparatuses in two distinct locations, each requiring a
different action. In the test, a human adult informed the
participant where to go by miming the action needed to
obtain the reward. Children used the iconic gestures (more
than arbitrary gestures) to locate the reward, whereas
chimpanzees did not. Some children also used arbitrary
gestures in the same way, but only after they had previously
shown comprehension for iconic gestures. Over time,
chimpanzees learned to associate iconic gestures with the
appropriate location faster than arbitrary gestures,
suggesting at least some recognition of the iconicity
involved. These results demonstrate the importance of
iconicity in referential communication.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.09.001},
Key = {fds351593}
}
@article{fds322246,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Svetlova, M and Johe, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children's developing understanding of legitimate reasons
for allocating resources unequally},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {37},
Pages = {42-52},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.11.001},
Abstract = {Recent research on distributive justice suggests that young
children prefer equal distributions. But sometimes unequal
distributions are justified, such as when some individuals
deserve more than others based on merit, need, or
agreed-upon rules. When and how do children start
incorporating such factors in their distributive decisions?
Three-, 5-, and 8-year-old children (N= 72) had the
opportunity to allocate several items to two individuals.
One individual was neutral and the other provided a reason
why she should be favored. Three of these reasons were
legitimate (based on merit, need, or agreed-upon rules)
whereas a fourth was idiosyncratic ("I just want more."). We
found that with age, children's equality preference
diminished and their acceptance of various reasons for
privileged treatment increased. It was not until 8 years,
however, that they differentiated between legitimate and
idiosyncratic reasons for inequality. These findings suggest
that children's sense of distributive justice develops from
an early equality preference to a more flexible
understanding of the basic normative reasons that inequality
may, in some cases, be just.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.11.001},
Key = {fds322246}
}
@article{fds323260,
Author = {Vogelsang, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Giving Is Nicer than Taking: Preschoolers Reciprocate Based
on the Social Intentions of the Distributor.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {11},
Number = {1},
Pages = {e0147539},
Publisher = {Public Library of Science (PLoS)},
Editor = {di Pellegrino, G},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147539},
Abstract = {Recent research has found that even preschoolers give more
resources to others who have previously given resources to
them, but the psychological bases of this reciprocity are
unknown. In our study, a puppet distributed resources
between herself and a child by taking some from a pile in
front of the child or else by giving some from a pile in
front of herself. Although the resulting distributions were
identical, three- and five-year-olds reciprocated less
generously when the puppet had taken rather than given
resources. This suggests that children's judgments about
resource distribution are more about the social intentions
of the distributor and the social framing of the
distributional act than about the amount of resources
obtained. In order to rule out that the differences in the
children's reciprocal behavior were merely due to
experiencing gains and losses, we conducted a follow-up
study. Here, three- and-five year olds won or lost resources
in a lottery draw and could then freely give or take
resources to/from a puppet, respectively. In this study,
they did not respond differently after winning vs. losing
resources.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0147539},
Key = {fds323260}
}
@article{fds351594,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Precís of a natural history of human thinking},
Journal = {Journal of Social Ontology},
Volume = {2},
Number = {1},
Pages = {59-64},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jso-2015-0041},
Abstract = {A précis of Michael Tomasello, A Natural History of Human
Thinking (Harvard University Press, 2014).},
Doi = {10.1515/jso-2015-0041},
Key = {fds351594}
}
@article{fds351596,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Response to commentators},
Journal = {Journal of Social Ontology},
Volume = {2},
Number = {1},
Pages = {117-123},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jso-2015-0042},
Abstract = {This paper is a reply to the comments by Henrike Moll,
Glenda Satne, Ladislav Koreň and Michael Schmitz on Michael
Tomasello, A Natural History of Human Thinking (Harvard
University Press, 2014).},
Doi = {10.1515/jso-2015-0042},
Key = {fds351596}
}
@article{fds351597,
Author = {Plötner, M and Over, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {What Is a Group? Young Children's Perceptions of Different
Types of Groups and Group Entitativity.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {11},
Number = {3},
Pages = {e0152001},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152001},
Abstract = {To date, developmental research on groups has focused mainly
on in-group biases and intergroup relations. However, little
is known about children's general understanding of social
groups and their perceptions of different forms of group. In
this study, 5- to 6-year-old children were asked to evaluate
prototypes of four key types of groups: an intimacy group
(friends), a task group (people who are collaborating), a
social category (people who look alike), and a loose
association (people who coincidently meet at a tram stop).
In line with previous work with adults, the vast majority of
children perceived the intimacy group, task group, and
social category, but not the loose association, to possess
entitativity, that is, to be a 'real group.' In addition,
children evaluated group member properties, social
relations, and social obligations differently in each type
of group, demonstrating that young children are able to
distinguish between different types of in-group relations.
The origins of the general group typology used by adults
thus appear early in development. These findings contribute
to our knowledge about children's intuitive understanding of
groups and group members' behavior.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0152001},
Key = {fds351597}
}
@article{fds351598,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The effects of being watched on resource acquisition in
chimpanzees and human children.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {19},
Number = {1},
Pages = {147-151},
Year = {2016},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0920-y},
Abstract = {Animals react in many different ways to being watched by
others. In the context of cooperation, many theories
emphasize reputational effects: Individuals should cooperate
more if other potential cooperators are watching. In the
context of competition, individuals might want to show off
their strength and prowess if other potential competitors
are watching. In the current study, we observed chimpanzees
and human children in three experimental conditions
involving resource acquisition: Participants were either in
the presence of a passive observer (observed condition), an
active observer who engaged in the same task as the
participant (competition condition), or in the presence of
but not directly observed by a conspecific (mere presence
condition). While both species worked to acquire more
resources in the competition condition, children but not
chimpanzees also worked to acquire more resources in the
observer condition (compared to the mere presence
condition). These results suggest evolutionary continuity
with regard to competition-based observer effects, but an
additional observer effect in young children, potentially
arising from an evolutionary-based concern for cooperative
reputation.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-015-0920-y},
Key = {fds351598}
}
@article{fds351599,
Author = {Bohn, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Communication about absent entities in great apes and human
infants.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {145},
Pages = {63-72},
Year = {2015},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.08.009},
Abstract = {There is currently debate about the extent to which
non-linguistic beings such as human infants and great apes
are capable of absent reference. In a series of experiments
we investigated the flexibility and specificity of great
apes' (N=36) and 12 month-old infants' (N=40) requests for
absent entities. Subjects had the choice between requesting
visible objects directly and using the former location of a
depleted option to request more of these now-absent
entities. Importantly, we systematically varied the quality
of the present and absent options. We found that great apes
as well as human infants flexibly adjusted their requests
for absent entities to these contextual variations and only
requested absent entities when the visible option was of
lower quality than the absent option. These results suggest
that the most basic cognitive capacities for absent
reference do not depend on language and are shared by humans
and their closest living relatives.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2015.08.009},
Key = {fds351599}
}
@article{fds351600,
Author = {Ulber, J and Hamann, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How 18- and 24-month-old peers divide resources among
themselves.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {140},
Pages = {228-244},
Year = {2015},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.07.009},
Abstract = {Young children are often considered "selfish" with resources
because they are reluctant to give up things already in
their possession (e.g., as in dictator games). In the
current two studies, we presented pairs of 18- and
24-month-old toddlers with various situations involving
resources that no one possessed ahead of time. We observed
very few instances of individuals attempting to monopolize
the resources; rather, the pair peaceably divided them such
that each child got something. Equal divisions--even
involving one child sacrificing his or her own resources to
establish equality-were especially pronounced when children
were acting together jointly even in the absence of active
collaboration. Children's divisions were also influenced by
cues to ownership such as a spatial pre-division of
resources and resources marked by color (and originally
spatially associated with one individual). These results
suggest that young children are not selfish, but instead
rather generous, with resources when they are dividing them
among themselves.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.07.009},
Key = {fds351600}
}
@article{fds351601,
Author = {Grocke, P and Rossano, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Procedural justice in children: Preschoolers accept unequal
resource distributions if the procedure provides equal
opportunities.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {140},
Pages = {197-210},
Year = {2015},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.07.008},
Abstract = {When it is not possible to distribute resources equitably to
everyone, people look for an equitable or just procedure. In
the current study, we investigated young children's sense of
procedural justice. We tested 32 triads of 5-year-olds in a
new resource allocation game. Triads were confronted with
three unequal reward packages and then agreed on a procedure
to allocate them among themselves. To allocate the rewards,
they needed to use a "wheel of fortune." Half of the groups
played with a fair wheel (where each child had an equal
chance of obtaining each reward package), and the other half
played with an unfair wheel. We analyzed children's
interactions when using the wheel and conducted an interview
with each child after the game was over. Children using the
unfair wheel often decided to change the rules of the game,
and they also rated it as an unfair procedure in the
interview. In contrast, children who played with the fair
wheel were mostly accepting of both the outcome and the
procedure. Overall, we found that children as young as
preschool age are already sensitive not only to distributive
justice but to procedural justice as well.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.07.008},
Key = {fds351601}
}
@article{fds323261,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Misch, A and Hernandez-Lloreda, V and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Uniquely human self-control begins at school
age.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {18},
Number = {6},
Pages = {979-993},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2015},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12272},
Abstract = {Human beings have remarkable skills of self-control, but the
evolutionary origins of these skills are unknown. Here we
compare children at 3 and 6 years of age with one of humans'
two nearest relatives, chimpanzees, on a battery of
reactivity and self-control tasks. Three-year-old children
and chimpanzees were very similar in their abilities to
resist an impulse for immediate gratification, repeat a
previously successful action, attend to a distracting noise,
and quit in the face of repeated failure. Six-year-old
children were more skillful than either 3-year-olds or
chimpanzees at controlling their impulses. These results
suggest that humans' most fundamental skills of self-control
- as part of the overall decision-making process - are a
part of their general great ape heritage, and that their
species-unique skills of self-control begin at around the
age at which many children begin formal schooling.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12272},
Key = {fds323261}
}
@article{fds351602,
Author = {Butler, LP and Schmidt, MFH and Bürgel, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children use pedagogical cues to modulate the strength
of normative inferences.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {33},
Number = {4},
Pages = {476-488},
Year = {2015},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12108},
Abstract = {Young children understand pedagogical demonstrations as
conveying generic, kind-relevant information. But, in some
contexts, they also see almost any confident, intentional
action on a novel artefact as normative and thus generic,
regardless of whether this action was pedagogically
demonstrated for them. Thus, although pedagogy may not be
necessary for inferences to the generic, it may nevertheless
be sufficient to produce inductive inferences on which the
child relies more strongly. This study addresses this
tension by bridging the literature on normative reasoning
with that on social learning and inductive inference.
Three-year-old children learned about a novel artefact from
either a pedagogical or non-pedagogical demonstration, and
then, a series of new actors acted on that artefact in novel
ways. Although children protested normatively in both
conditions (e.g., 'No, not like that'), they persisted
longer in enforcing the learned norms in the face of
repeated non-conformity by the new actors. This finding
suggests that not all generic, normative inferences are
created equal, but rather they depend - at least for their
strength - on the nature of the acquisition
process.},
Doi = {10.1111/bjdp.12108},
Key = {fds351602}
}
@article{fds351603,
Author = {Plötner, M and Over, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The effects of collaboration and minimal-group membership on
children's prosocial behavior, liking, affiliation, and
trust.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {139},
Pages = {161-173},
Year = {2015},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.05.008},
Abstract = {Recent theoretical work has highlighted potential links
between interpersonal collaboration and group membership in
the evolution of human sociality. Here we compared the
effects of collaboration and minimal-group membership on
young children's prosocial behavior (i.e., helping and
resource allocation), liking, affiliation, and trust. In a
design that matched as closely as possible these two ways of
connecting with others, we showed that 5-year-olds' behavior
was affected similarly by collaboration and minimal-group
membership; both increased children's preference for their
partners on multiple dimensions and produced overall effects
of a similar magnitude. In contrast, 3.5-year-olds did not
have a strong preference for either collaborators or minimal
in-group members. Thus, both collaboration and minimal-group
membership are similarly effective in their influence on
children's prosocial behavior and social
preferences.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.05.008},
Key = {fds351603}
}
@article{fds361386,
Title = {Michael Tomasello: Award for Distinguished Scientific
Contributions.},
Journal = {The American psychologist},
Volume = {70},
Number = {8},
Pages = {680-682},
Year = {2015},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039789},
Abstract = {The APA Awards for Distinguished Scientific Contributions
are presented to persons who, in the opinion of the
Committee on Scientific Awards, have made distinguished
theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in
psychology. One of the 2015 award winners is Michael
Tomasello, who received this award for "outstanding
empirical and theoretical contributions to understanding
what makes the human mind unique. Michael Tomasello's
pioneering research on the origins of social cognition has
led to revolutionary insights in both developmental
psychology and primate cognition." Tomasello's award
citation, biography, and a selected bibliography are
presented here.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0039789},
Key = {fds361386}
}
@article{fds351604,
Author = {Grosse, K and Call, J and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Differences in the Ability of Apes and Children to Instruct
Others Using Gestures},
Journal = {Language Learning and Development},
Volume = {11},
Number = {4},
Pages = {310-330},
Year = {2015},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2014.955246},
Abstract = {In all human cultures, people gesture iconically. However,
the evolutionary basis of iconic gestures is unknown. In
this study, chimpanzees and bonobos, and 2- and 3-year-old
children, learned how to operate two apparatuses to get
rewards. Then, at test, only a human adult had access to the
apparatuses, and participants could instruct her about how
to obtain the rewards. Children frequently produced
appropriate iconic gestures, but with the exception of one
human-raised chimpanzee, great apes did not gesture
iconically. However, chimpanzees pointed to a reward outside
the apparatus in another experimental condition, showing
their motivation and ability to communicate with the human
to request it. They also manipulated a duplicate apparatus
in appropriate ways, though it was unclear if they did this
to communicate with the human. Although great apes may have
some of the prerequisite skills involved, iconic gestures
come naturally to humans in a way that they do not for great
apes.},
Doi = {10.1080/15475441.2014.955246},
Key = {fds351604}
}
@article{fds351605,
Author = {Cameron-Faulkner, T and Theakston, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The relationship between infant holdout and gives, and
pointing},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {20},
Number = {5},
Pages = {576-586},
Year = {2015},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/infa.12085},
Abstract = {We provide an analysis of holdout and giving (Ho&G)
behaviours in prelinguistic infants and investigate their
relationship with index finger pointing. The frequency of
Ho&Gs at 10 and 11 months along with the length of the
following social interaction correlated with index finger
pointing at 12 months. We conclude that Ho&Gs are a
precursor to index finger pointing and that this provides
support for social-pragmatic approaches to communicative
development.},
Doi = {10.1111/infa.12085},
Key = {fds351605}
}
@article{fds351606,
Author = {Karg, K and Schmelz, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees strategically manipulate what others can
see.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {18},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1069-1076},
Year = {2015},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-015-0875-z},
Abstract = {Humans often strategically manipulate the informational
access of others to their own advantage. Although
chimpanzees know what others can and cannot see, it is
unclear whether they can strategically manipulate others'
visual access. In this study, chimpanzees were given the
opportunity to save food for themselves by concealing it
from a human competitor and also to get more food for
themselves by revealing it to a human cooperator. When
knowing that a competitor was approaching, chimpanzees kept
more food hidden (left it covered) than when expecting a
cooperator to approach. When the experimenter was already at
the location of the hidden food, they actively revealed less
food to the competitor than to the cooperator. They did not
actively hide food (cover up food in the open) from the
competitor, however. Chimpanzees thus strategically
manipulated what another could see in order to maximize
their payoffs and showed their ability to plan for future
situations.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-015-0875-z},
Key = {fds351606}
}
@article{fds351607,
Author = {Schmerse, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children use shared experience to interpret definite
reference.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {42},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1146-1157},
Year = {2015},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000914000555},
Abstract = {We investigated whether children at the ages of two and
three years understand that a speaker's use of the definite
article specifies a referent that is in common ground
between speaker and listener. An experimenter and a child
engaged in joint actions in which the experimenter chose one
of three similar objects of the same category to perform an
action. In subsequent interactions children were asked to
get 'the X' or 'a X'. When children were instructed with the
definite article they chose the shared object significantly
more often than when they were instructed with the
indefinite article in which case children's choice was at
chance. The findings show that in their third year children
use shared experiences to interpret the speaker's
communicative intention underlying her referential choice.
The results are discussed with respect to children's
representation of linguistic categories and the role of
joint action for establishing common ground.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000914000555},
Key = {fds351607}
}
@article{fds359906,
Author = {Grassmann, S and Schulze, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children’s level of word knowledge predicts their
exclusion of familiar objects as referents of novel
words},
Journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
Volume = {6},
Year = {2015},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01200},
Abstract = {When children are learning a novel object label, they tend
to exclude as possible referents familiar objects for which
they already have a name. In the current study, we wanted to
know if children would behave in this same way regardless of
how well they knew the name of potential referent objects,
specifically, whether they could only comprehend it or they
could both comprehend and produce it. Sixty-six monolingual
German-speaking 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children participated
in two experimental sessions. In one session the familiar
objects were chosen such that their labels were in the
children’s productive vocabularies, and in the other
session the familiar objects were chosen such that their
labels were only in the children’s receptive vocabularies.
Results indicated that children at all three ages were more
likely to exclude a familiar object as the potential
referent of the novel word if they could comprehend and
produce its name rather than comprehend its name only.
Indeed, level of word knowledge as operationalized in this
way was a better predictor than was age. These results are
discussed in the context of current theories of word
learning by exclusion.},
Doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01200},
Key = {fds359906}
}
@article{fds323262,
Author = {Schäfer, M and Haun, DBM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Fair Is Not Fair Everywhere.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {26},
Number = {8},
Pages = {1252-1260},
Publisher = {SAGE Publications},
Year = {2015},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797615586188},
Abstract = {Distributing the spoils of a joint enterprise on the basis
of work contribution or relative productivity seems natural
to the modern Western mind. But such notions of merit-based
distributive justice may be culturally constructed norms
that vary with the social and economic structure of a group.
In the present research, we showed that children from three
different cultures have very different ideas about
distributive justice. Whereas children from a modern Western
society distributed the spoils of a joint enterprise
precisely in proportion to productivity, children from a
gerontocratic pastoralist society in Africa did not take
merit into account at all. Children from a partially
hunter-gatherer, egalitarian African culture distributed the
spoils more equally than did the other two cultures, with
merit playing only a limited role. This pattern of results
suggests that some basic notions of distributive justice are
not universal intuitions of the human species but rather
culturally constructed behavioral norms.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797615586188},
Key = {fds323262}
}
@article{fds351608,
Author = {Theakston, AL and Ibbotson, P and Freudenthal, D and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Productivity of Noun Slots in Verb Frames.},
Journal = {Cognitive science},
Volume = {39},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1369-1395},
Year = {2015},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12216},
Abstract = {Productivity is a central concept in the study of language
and language acquisition. As a test case for exploring the
notion of productivity, we focus on the noun slots of verb
frames, such as __want__, __see__, and __get__. We develop a
novel combination of measures designed to assess both the
flexibility and creativity of use in these slots. We do so
using a rigorously controlled sample of child speech and
child directed speech from three English-speaking children
between the ages of 2-3 years and their caregivers. We find
different levels of creativity and flexibility between the
adult and child samples for some measures, for some slots,
and for some developmental periods. We discuss these
differences in the context of verb frame semantics,
conventionality versus creativity and child errors, and draw
some tentative conclusions regarding developmental changes
in children's early grammatical representations.},
Doi = {10.1111/cogs.12216},
Key = {fds351608}
}
@article{fds351609,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Focusing and shifting attention in human children (Homo
sapiens) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {129},
Number = {3},
Pages = {268-274},
Year = {2015},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039384},
Abstract = {Humans often must coordinate co-occurring activities, and
their flexible skills for doing so would seem to be uniquely
powerful. In 2 studies, we compared 4- and 5-year-old
children and one of humans' nearest relatives, chimpanzees,
in their ability to focus and shift their attention when
necessary. The results of Study 1 showed that 4-year-old
children and chimpanzees were very similar in their ability
to monitor two identical devices and to sequentially switch
between the two to collect a reward, and that they were less
successful at doing so than 5-year-old children. In Study 2,
which required subjects to alternate between two different
tasks, one of which had rewards continuously available
whereas the other one only occasionally released rewards, no
species differences were found. These results suggest that
chimpanzees and human children share some fundamental
attentional control skills, but that such abilities continue
to develop during human ontogeny, resulting in the uniquely
human capacity to succeed at complex multitasking.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0039384},
Key = {fds351609}
}
@article{fds359907,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Novel paradigms to measure variability of behavior in early
childhood: posture, gaze, and pupil dilation},
Journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
Volume = {6},
Year = {2015},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00858},
Abstract = {A central challenge of investigating the underlying
mechanisms of and the individual differences in young
children’s behavior is the measurement of the internal
physiological mechanism and the involved expressive
emotions. Here, we illustrate two paradigms that assess
concurrent indicators of both children’s social perception
as well as their emotional expression. In one set of
studies, children view situations while their eye movements
are mapped onto a live scene. In these studies, children’s
internal arousal is measured via changes in their pupil
dilation by using eye tracking technology. In another set of
studies, we measured children’s emotional expression via
changes in their upper-body posture by using depth sensor
imaging technology. Together, these paradigms can provide
new insights into the internal mechanism and outward
emotional expression involved in young children’s
behavior.},
Doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00858},
Key = {fds359907}
}
@article{fds323263,
Author = {Karg, K and Schmelz, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The goggles experiment: Can chimpanzees use self-experience
to infer what a competitor can see?},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {105},
Pages = {211-221},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2015},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.04.028},
Abstract = {In two experiments, we investigated whether chimpanzees, Pan
troglodytes, can use self-experience to infer what another
sees. Subjects first gained self-experience with the visual
properties of an object (either opaque or see-through). In a
subsequent test phase, a human experimenter interacted with
the object and we tested whether chimpanzees understood that
the experimenter experienced the object as opaque or as
see-through. Crucially, in the test phase, the object seemed
opaque to the subject in all cases (while the experimenter
could see through the one that they had experienced as
see-through before), such that she had to use her previous
self-experience with the object to correctly infer whether
the experimenter could or could not see when looking at the
object. Chimpanzees did not attribute their previous
self-experience with the object to the experimenter in a
gaze-following task (experiment 1); however, they did so
successfully in a competitive context (experiment 2). We
conclude that chimpanzees successfully used their
self-experience to infer what the competitor sees. We
discuss our results in relation to the well-known 'goggles
experiment' and address alternative explanations.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.04.028},
Key = {fds323263}
}
@article{fds351610,
Author = {Köymen, B and Schmidt, MFH and Rost, L and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Teaching versus enforcing game rules in preschoolers' peer
interactions.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {135},
Pages = {93-101},
Year = {2015},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.02.005},
Abstract = {Children use normative language in two key contexts: when
teaching others and when enforcing social norms. We
presented pairs of 3- and 5-year-old peers (N=192) with a
sorting game in two experimental conditions (in addition to
a third baseline condition). In the teaching condition, one
child was knowledgeable, whereas the other child was
ignorant and so in need of instruction. In the enforcement
condition, children learned conflicting rules so that each
child was making mistakes from the other's point of view.
When teaching rules to an ignorant partner, both age groups
used generic normative language ("Bunnies go here"). When
enforcing rules on a rule-breaking partner, 3-year-olds used
normative utterances that were not generic and aimed at
correcting individual behavior ("No, this goes there"),
whereas 5-year-olds again used generic normative language,
perhaps because they discerned that instruction was needed
in this case as well. Young children normatively correct
peers differently depending on their assessment of what
their wayward partners need to bring them back into
line.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2015.02.005},
Key = {fds351610}
}
@article{fds351618,
Author = {Kanngiesser, P and Rossano, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Late Emergence of the First Possession Heuristic: Evidence
From a Small-Scale Culture},
Journal = {Child Development},
Volume = {86},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1282-1289},
Year = {2015},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12365},
Abstract = {Western preschool children often assign ownership based on
first possession and some theorists have proposed that this
judgment might be an early emerging, innate bias. Five- to
9-year-olds (n = 112) from a small-scale group in Kenya
(Kikuyu) watched videotaped interactions of two women
passing an object. The object's starting position and the
women's gestures were varied. Use of the first possession
heuristic increased with age, and 8- to 9-year-olds
performed similarly to German 5-year-olds (n = 24). Starting
position and gestures had no effect. A control study
confirmed that 5-year-old Kikuyus (n = 20) understood the
video material. The findings reveal that the first
possession heuristic follows different developmental
trajectories cross-culturally and stress the role of
children's sociocultural environment.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12365},
Key = {fds351618}
}
@article{fds351611,
Author = {Riedl, K and Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Restorative Justice in Children.},
Journal = {Current biology : CB},
Volume = {25},
Number = {13},
Pages = {1731-1735},
Year = {2015},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.014},
Abstract = {An important, and perhaps uniquely human, mechanism for
maintaining cooperation against free riders is third-party
punishment. Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, will
not punish third parties even though they will do so when
personally affected. Until recently, little attention has
been paid to how punishment and a sense of justice develop
in children. Children respond to norm violations. They are
more likely to share with a puppet that helped another
individual as opposed to one who behaved harmfully, and they
show a preference for seeing a harmful doll rather than a
victim punished. By 6 years of age, children will pay a cost
to punish fictional and real peers, and the threat of
punishment will lead preschoolers to behave more generously.
However, little is known about what motivates a sense of
justice in children. We gave 3- and 5-year-old children--the
youngest ages yet tested--the opportunity to remove items
and prevent a puppet from gaining a reward for second- and
third-party violations (experiment 1), and we gave
3-year-olds the opportunity to restore items (experiment 2).
Children were as likely to engage in third-party
interventions as they were when personally affected, yet
they did not discriminate among the different sources of
harm for the victim. When given a range of options,
3-year-olds chose restoration over removal. It appears that
a sense of justice centered on harm caused to victims
emerges early in childhood and highlights the value of
third-party interventions for human cooperation.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.014},
Key = {fds351611}
}
@article{fds323264,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Wyman, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children use salience to solve coordination
problems.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {18},
Number = {3},
Pages = {495-501},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2015},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12224},
Abstract = {Humans are routinely required to coordinate with others.
When communication is not possible, adults often achieve
this by using salient cues in the environment (e.g. going to
the Eiffel Tower, as an obvious meeting point). To explore
the development of this capacity, we presented dyads of 3-,
5-, and 8-year-olds (N = 144) with a coordination problem:
Two balls had to be inserted into the same of four boxes to
obtain a reward. Identical pictures were attached to three
boxes whereas a unique--and thus salient--picture was
attached to the fourth. Children either received one ball
each, and so had to choose the same box (experimental
condition), or they received both balls and could get the
reward independently (control condition). In all cases,
children could neither communicate nor see each other's
choices. Children were significantly more likely to choose
the salient option in the experimental condition than in the
control condition. However, only the two older age groups
chose the salient box above chance levels. This study is the
first to show that children from at least age 5 can solve
coordination problems by converging on a salient
solution.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12224},
Key = {fds323264}
}
@article{fds351612,
Author = {Grünloh, T and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young Children’s Intonational Marking of New, Given and
Contrastive Referents},
Journal = {Language Learning and Development},
Volume = {11},
Number = {2},
Pages = {95-127},
Year = {2015},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441.2014.889530},
Abstract = {In the current study we investigate whether 2- and
3-year-old German children use intonation productively to
mark the informational status of referents. Using a
story-telling task, we compared children’s and adults’
intonational realization via pitch accent (H*, L* and
de-accentuation) of New, Given, and Contrastive referents.
Both children and adults distinguished these elements with
different pitch accents. Adults, however, de-accented Given
information much more often than the children, especially
the younger children. Since a failure to de-accent Given
information may be a characteristic of caregiver speech, in
a second study we tested how caregivers talking to their
young children realize Given and New referents. In this
discourse situation, the caregivers quite often failed to
de-accent Given information, raising the possibility that
the younger children were simply reproducing the pitch
accents they had heard adults using.},
Doi = {10.1080/15475441.2014.889530},
Key = {fds351612}
}
@article{fds351613,
Author = {Plötner, M and Over, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children show the bystander effect in helping
situations.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {26},
Number = {4},
Pages = {499-506},
Year = {2015},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797615569579},
Abstract = {Much research in social psychology has shown that otherwise
helpful people often fail to help when bystanders are
present. Research in developmental psychology has shown that
even very young children help and that the presence of
others can actually increase helping in some cases. In the
current study, in contrast, 5-year-old children helped an
experimenter at very high levels when they were alone but
helped significantly less often in the presence of
bystanders who were potentially available to help. In
another condition designed to elucidate the mechanism
underlying the effect, children's helping was not reduced
when bystanders were present but confined behind a barrier
and thus unable to help (a condition that has not been run
in previous studies with adults). Young children thus show
the bystander effect, and it is due not to social
referencing or shyness to act in front of others but,
rather, to a sense of a diffusion of responsibility.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797615569579},
Key = {fds351613}
}
@article{fds351614,
Author = {Moore, R and Mueller, B and Kaminski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Two-year-old children but not domestic dogs understand
communicative intentions without language, gestures, or
gaze.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {18},
Number = {2},
Pages = {232-242},
Year = {2015},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12206},
Abstract = {Infants can see someone pointing to one of two buckets and
infer that the toy they are seeking is hidden inside. Great
apes do not succeed in this task, but, surprisingly,
domestic dogs do. However, whether children and dogs
understand these communicative acts in the same way is not
yet known. To test this possibility, an experimenter did not
point, look, or extend any part of her body towards either
bucket, but instead lifted and shook one via a centrally
pulled rope. She did this either intentionally or
accidentally, and did or did not address her act to the
subject using ostensive cues. Young 2-year-old children but
not dogs understood the experimenter's act in intentional
conditions. While ostensive pulling of the rope made no
difference to children's success, it actually hindered dogs'
performance. We conclude that while human children may be
capable of inferring communicative intent from a wide
variety actions, so long as these actions are performed
intentionally, dogs are likely to be less flexible in this
respect. Their understanding of communicative intention may
be more dependent upon bodily markers of communicative
intent, including gaze, orientation, extended limbs, and
vocalizations. This may be because humans have come under
selective pressure to develop skills for communicating with
absent interlocutors - where bodily co-presence is not
possible.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12206},
Key = {fds351614}
}
@article{fds351615,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Wyman, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Conforming to coordinate: children use majority information
for peer coordination.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {33},
Number = {1},
Pages = {136-147},
Year = {2015},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12078},
Abstract = {Humans are constantly required to coordinate their behaviour
with others. As this often relies on everyone's convergence
on the same strategy (e.g., driving on the left side of the
road), a common solution is to conform to majority
behaviour. In this study, we presented 5-year-old children
with a coordination problem: To retrieve some rewards, they
had to choose the same of four options as a peer partner--in
reality a stooge--whose decision they were unable to see.
Before making a choice, they watched a video showing how
other children from their partner's peer group had behaved;
a majority chose the same option and a minority chose a
different one. In a control condition, children watched the
same video but could then retrieve the reward irrespective
of their partner's choice (i.e., no coordination was
necessary). Children followed the majority more often when
coordination was required. Moreover, conformers mostly
justified their choices by referring to the majority from
the video demonstration. This study is the first to show
that young children are able to strategically coordinate
decisions with peers by conforming to the
majority.},
Doi = {10.1111/bjdp.12078},
Key = {fds351615}
}
@article{fds351616,
Author = {Schulze, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {18-month-olds comprehend indirect communicative
acts.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {136},
Pages = {91-98},
Year = {2015},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2014.11.036},
Abstract = {From soon after their first birthdays young children are
able to make inferences from a communicator's referential
act (e.g., pointing to a container) to her overall social
goal for communication (e.g., to inform that a searched-for
toy is inside; see Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2005;
Behne, Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2012). But in
such cases the inferential distance between referential act
and communicative intention is still fairly close, as both
container and searched-for toy lie in the direction of the
pointing gesture. In the current study we tested 18- and
26-month-old children in a situation in which referential
act and communicative goal were more distant: In the midst
of a game, the child needed a certain toy. The experimenter
then held up a key (that they knew in common ground could be
used to open a container) to the child ostensively. In two
control conditions the experimenter either inadvertently
moved the key and so drew the child's attention to it
non-ostensively or else held up the key for her own
inspection intentionally but non-communicatively. Children
of both ages took only the ostensive showing of the key, not
the accidental moving or the non-ostensive but intentional
inspection of the key, as an indirect request to take the
key and open the container to retrieve the toy inside. From
soon after they start acquiring language young children thus
are able to infer a communicator's social goal for
communication not only from directly-referential acts, but
from more indirect communicative acts as
well.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2014.11.036},
Key = {fds351616}
}
@article{fds323266,
Author = {Rossano, F and Fiedler, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Preschoolers' understanding of the role of communication and
cooperation in establishing property rights.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {51},
Number = {2},
Pages = {176-184},
Publisher = {American Psychological Association (APA)},
Year = {2015},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038493},
Abstract = {Property as a social "agreement" comprises both a
communicative component, in which someone makes a claim that
she is entitled to some piece of property, and a cooperative
component, in which others in the community respect that
claim as legitimate. In the current study, preschool
children were (a) given the opportunity to mark some objects
as "theirs" (to claim them in the face of other fictitious
children who would supposedly enter the room later); and (b)
confronted with stickers in various spatial arrangements
(e.g., piled up neatly vs. scattered), told that a
fictitious child had previously chosen some for herself but
had to suddenly leave the room, and then invited first to
choose some stickers for themselves and second to identify
which stickers had already been claimed by the fictitious
child. Five-year-olds but not 3-year-olds were skillful in
both of these tasks, demonstrating an understanding of the
crucial role of communication in asserting property claims
and the crucial role of cooperation in respecting
them.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0038493},
Key = {fds323266}
}
@article{fds351617,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees trust conspecifics to engage in low-cost
reciprocity.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {282},
Number = {1801},
Pages = {20142803},
Year = {2015},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.2803},
Abstract = {Many of humans' most important social interactions rely on
trust, including most notably among strangers. But little is
known about the evolutionary roots of human trust. We
presented chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with a modified
version of the human trust game--trust in reciprocity--in
which subjects could opt either to obtain a small but safe
reward on their own or else to send a larger reward to a
partner and trust her to reciprocate a part of the reward
that she could not access herself. In a series of three
studies, we found strong evidence that in interacting with a
conspecific, chimpanzees show spontaneous trust in a novel
context; flexibly adjust their level of trust to the
trustworthiness of their partner and develop patterns of
trusting reciprocity over time. At least in some contexts
then, trust in reciprocity is not unique to humans, but
rather has its evolutionary roots in the social interactions
of humans' closest primate relatives.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2014.2803},
Key = {fds351617}
}
@article{fds323265,
Author = {Grueneisen, S and Wyman, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {"I know you don't know I know…" children use second-order
false-belief reasoning for peer coordination.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {86},
Number = {1},
Pages = {287-293},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2015},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12264},
Abstract = {Numerous studies have investigated children's abilities to
attribute mental states, but few have examined their ability
to recruit these abilities in social interactions. Here,
6-year-olds (N = 104) were tested on whether they can use
first- and second-order false-belief understanding to
coordinate with peers. Children adjusted their decisions in
a coordination game in response to either their partner's
erroneous belief or their partner's erroneous belief about
their own belief-a result that contrasts with previous
findings on the use of higher order "theory of mind" (TOM)
reasoning at this age. Six-year-olds are thus able to use
their higher order TOM capacities for peer coordination,
which marks an important achievement in becoming competent
social collaborators.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12264},
Key = {fds323265}
}
@article{fds351619,
Author = {Moore, R and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Production and Comprehension of Gestures between Orang-Utans
(Pongo pygmaeus) in a Referential Communication
Game.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {10},
Number = {6},
Pages = {e0129726},
Year = {2015},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0129726},
Abstract = {Orang-utans played a communication game in two studies
testing their ability to produce and comprehend requestive
pointing. While the 'communicator' could see but not obtain
hidden food, the 'donor' could release the food to the
communicator, but could not see its location for herself.
They could coordinate successfully if the communicator
pointed to the food, and if the donor comprehended his
communicative goal and responded pro-socially. In Study 1,
one orang-utan pointed regularly and accurately for peers.
However, they responded only rarely. In Study 2, a human
experimenter played the communicator's role in three
conditions, testing the apes' comprehension of points of
different heights and different degrees of ostension. There
was no effect of condition. However, across conditions one
donor performed well individually, and as a group
orang-utans' comprehension performance tended towards
significance. We explain this on the grounds that
comprehension required inferences that they found difficult
- but not impossible. The finding has valuable implications
for our thinking about the development of pointing in
phylogeny.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0129726},
Key = {fds351619}
}
@article{fds351620,
Author = {Melis, AP and Floedl, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Non-egalitarian allocations among preschool peers in a
face-to-face bargaining task.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {10},
Number = {3},
Pages = {e0120494},
Year = {2015},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120494},
Abstract = {In face-to-face bargaining tasks human adults almost always
agree on an equal split of resources. This is due to
mutually recognized fairness and equality norms. Early
developmental studies on sharing and equality norms found
that egalitarian allocations of resources are not common
before children are 5 or 6 years old. However, recent
studies have shown that in some face-to face collaborative
situations, or when recipients express their desires,
children at much younger ages choose equal allocations. We
investigated the ability of 3.5 and 5-year-olds to negotiate
face-to-face, whether to collaborate to obtain an equal or
an unequal distribution of rewards. We hypothesized that the
face-to-face interaction and interdependency between
partners would facilitate egalitarian outcomes at both ages.
In the first experiment we found that 5-year-olds were more
egalitarian than 3.5-year-olds, but neither of the age
classes shared equally. In the second experiment, in which
we increased the magnitude of the inequality, we found that
children at both ages mostly agreed on the unequal
distribution. These results show that communication and
face-to-face interactions are not sufficient to guarantee
equal allocations at 3-5 years of age. These results add to
previous findings suggesting that in the context of
non-collaboratively produced resources it is only after 5
years of age that children use equality norms to allocate
resources.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0120494},
Key = {fds351620}
}
@article{fds321684,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Riedl, K and Jensen, K and Call,,
J},
Title = {Restorative justice in young children},
Journal = {Current Biology},
Volume = {25},
Pages = {1-5},
Year = {2015},
Key = {fds321684}
}
@article{fds351621,
Author = {Haun, DBM and Rekers, Y and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children conform to the behavior of peers; other great apes
stick with what they know.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {25},
Number = {12},
Pages = {2160-2167},
Year = {2014},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797614553235},
Abstract = {All primates learn things from conspecifics socially, but it
is not clear whether they conform to the behavior of these
conspecifics--if conformity is defined as overriding
individually acquired behavioral tendencies in order to copy
peers' behavior. In the current study, chimpanzees,
orangutans, and 2-year-old human children individually
acquired a problem-solving strategy. They then watched
several conspecific peers demonstrate an alternative
strategy. The children switched to this new, socially
demonstrated strategy in roughly half of all instances,
whereas the other two great-ape species almost never
adjusted their behavior to the majority's. In a follow-up
study, children switched much more when the peer
demonstrators were still present than when they were absent,
which suggests that their conformity arose at least in part
from social motivations. These results demonstrate an
important difference between the social learning of humans
and great apes, a difference that might help to account for
differences in human and nonhuman cultures.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797614553235},
Key = {fds351621}
}
@article{fds351622,
Author = {Duguid, S and Wyman, E and Bullinger, AF and Herfurth-Majstorovic, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Coordination strategies of chimpanzees and human children in
a Stag Hunt game.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {281},
Number = {1796},
Pages = {20141973},
Year = {2014},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1973},
Abstract = {Much of human cooperation takes place in mutualistic
contexts in which the main challenge for individuals is how
to coordinate decisions. In the current studies, we compared
the abilities of chimpanzees and young children to
coordinate with a partner in two versions of a Stag Hunt
game. When risks were low (the hare was of low value) and
information was cheap (the partner's behaviour was readily
observable), partners of both species were able to
successfully coordinate on the higher value stag more than
90% of the time. By contrast, when the risks were raised and
observing the partner was more difficult, the chimpanzees
became less successful, whereas the children compensated,
and so remained highly successful, by communicating more
often and more specifically. This pattern of results is
consistent with the hypothesis that humans evolved unique
skills of coordination and communication in the context of
especially risky coordination problems.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2014.1973},
Key = {fds351622}
}
@article{fds351623,
Author = {Karg, K and Schmelz, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {All great ape species (Gorilla gorilla, Pan paniscus, Pan
troglodytes, Pongo abelii) and two-and-a-half-year-old
children (Homo sapiens) discriminate appearance from
reality.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {128},
Number = {4},
Pages = {431-439},
Year = {2014},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037385},
Abstract = {Nonhuman great apes and human children were tested for an
understanding that appearance does not always correspond to
reality. Subjects were 29 great apes (bonobos [Pan
paniscus], chimpanzees [Pan troglodytes], gorillas [Gorilla
gorilla], and orangutans [Pongo abelii]) and 24 2½-year-old
children. In our task, we occluded portions of 1 large and 1
small food stick such that the size relations seemed
reversed. Subjects could then choose which one they wanted.
There was 1 control condition and 2 experimental conditions
(administered within subjects). In the control condition
subjects saw only the apparent stick sizes, whereas in the 2
experimental conditions they saw the true stick sizes as
well (the difference between them being what the subjects
saw first: the apparent or the real stick sizes). All great
ape species and children successfully identified the bigger
stick, despite its smaller appearance, in the experimental
conditions, but not in the control. We discuss these results
in relation to the understanding of object permanence and
conservation, and exclude reversed reward contingency
learning as an explanation.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0037385},
Key = {fds351623}
}
@article{fds351624,
Author = {Köymen, B and Rosenbaum, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Reasoning during joint decision-making by preschool
peers},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {32},
Pages = {74-85},
Year = {2014},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.09.001},
Abstract = {Reasoning with a peer to make a joint decision involves
making a proposal (e.g., "Polar bears go here") and
justifying it with relevant facts (e.g., "This is ice")
based on common ground assumptions or warrants (e.g., polar
bears need ice). Twenty-four dyads of 3- and 5-year-olds
built a zoo with toy items that were either conventional
(e.g., animals, cages) or unconventional (e.g., piano). For
conventional items, both participants in both age groups
used justifications that relied on implicit warrants (e.g.,
stating only the fact "This is ice", assuming that both
partners know that polar bears need ice). For unconventional
items, they more often articulated the warrant explicitly,
arguably to create the necessary common ground.
Five-year-olds made warrants explicit more often, produced
more justifications, and reached mutual agreement more often
than did 3-year-olds. These results suggest that
preschoolers can reason with one another appropriately,
specifically in justifying their proposals based on
appropriate common ground assumptions.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.09.001},
Key = {fds351624}
}
@article{fds351625,
Author = {Köymen, B and Schmerse, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children create partner-specific referential pacts
with peers.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {50},
Number = {10},
Pages = {2334-2342},
Year = {2014},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037837},
Abstract = {In 2 studies, we investigated how peers establish a
referential pact to call something, for example, a cushion
versus a pillow (both equally felicitous). In Study 1, pairs
of 4- and 6-year-old German-speaking peers established a
referential pact for an artifact, for example, a woman's
shoe, in a referential communication task. Six-year-olds,
but not 4-year-olds, continued to use these same expressions
with the same partner (even when they were overinformative)
but shifted to simpler expressions, for example, shoe, with
a new partner. In Study 2, both age groups were successful
in establishing such partner-specific referential pacts with
a peer when using a proper name. These results suggest that
even preschool children appreciate something of the
conventional nature of linguistic expressions, with
significant flexibility emerging between ages 4 and
6.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0037837},
Key = {fds351625}
}
@article{fds351626,
Author = {Tennie, C and Walter, V and Gampe, A and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Limitations to the cultural ratchet effect in young
children.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {126},
Pages = {152-160},
Year = {2014},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.04.006},
Abstract = {Although many animal species show at least some evidence of
cultural transmission, broadly defined, only humans show
clear evidence of cumulative culture. In the current study,
we investigated whether young children show the "ratchet
effect," an important component of cumulative culture--the
ability to accumulate efficient modifications across
generations. We tested 16 diffusion chains--altogether
consisting of 80 children--to see how they solved an
instrumental task (i.e., carrying something from one
location to another). We found that when the chain was
seeded with an inefficient way of solving the task,
4-year-olds were able to innovate and transmit these
innovations so as to reach a more efficient solution.
However, when it started out with relatively efficient
solutions already (i.e., the ones that children in a control
condition discovered for themselves), there were no further
techniques invented and/or transmitted beyond that. Thus,
young children showed the ratchet effect to a limited
extent, accumulating efficient modifications but not going
beyond the inventive level of the individual.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2014.04.006},
Key = {fds351626}
}
@article{fds351627,
Author = {Bullinger, AF and Melis, AP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) instrumentally help but do not
communicate in a mutualistic cooperative
task.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {128},
Number = {3},
Pages = {251-260},
Year = {2014},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035645},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees cooperate in a variety of contexts, but
communicating to influence and regulate cooperative
activities is rare. It is unclear whether this reflects
chimpanzees' general inability or whether they have found
other means to coordinate cooperative activities. In the
present study chimpanzees could help a partner play her role
in a mutually beneficial food-retrieval task either by
transferring a needed tool (transfer condition) or by
visually or acoustically communicating the hiding-location
of the needed tool (communication condition). Overall,
chimpanzees readily helped their partner by delivering the
needed tool, but none of them communicated the hiding
location of the tool to their partner reliably across
trials. These results demonstrate that although chimpanzees
can coordinate their cooperative activities by
instrumentally helping their partner in her role, they do
not readily use communication with their partner for this
same end.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0035645},
Key = {fds351627}
}
@article{fds351628,
Author = {Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children create iconic gestures to inform
others.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {50},
Number = {8},
Pages = {2049-2060},
Year = {2014},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037224},
Abstract = {Much is known about young children's use of deictic gestures
such as pointing. Much less is known about their use of
other types of communicative gestures, especially iconic or
symbolic gestures. In particular, it is unknown whether
children can create iconic gestures on the spot to inform
others. Study 1 provided 27-month-olds with the opportunity
to inform a novice how to perform a task. The majority of
children created appropriate iconic gestures, and they did
so significantly more than in a control condition in which
the need to inform someone was removed. In Study 2, some of
the 21-month-olds tested also created novel iconic gestures
but to a lesser extent. Results are discussed in relation to
children's symbolic, linguistic, and social-cognitive
development.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0037224},
Key = {fds351628}
}
@article{fds351629,
Author = {Austin, K and Theakston, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of denial.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {50},
Number = {8},
Pages = {2061-2070},
Year = {2014},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037179},
Abstract = {Although a fair amount is known about young children's
production of negation, little is known about their
comprehension. Here, we focus on arguably the most complex
basic form, denial, and how young children understand
denial, when it is expressed in response to a question with
gesture, single word, or sentence. One hundred twenty-six
children in 3 age groups (Ms = 1 year 9 months, 2 years 0
months, and 2 years 4 months) witnessed an adult look into 1
of 2 buckets and then, in response to a question about
whether the toy was in there, communicate either something
positive (positive head nod, "yes," "it is in this bucket")
or negative (negative head shake, "No," "It's not in this
bucket"). The youngest children did not search differently
in response to any of the communicative cues (nor in
response to an additional cue using both gesture and single
word). Children at 2 years 0 months searched at above-chance
levels only in response to the negative word and negative
sentence. Children at 2 years 4 months were successful with
all 3 types of cues in both positive and negative
modalities, with the exception of the positive sentence.
Young children thus seem to understand the denial of a
statement before they understand its affirmation, and they
understand linguistic means of expressing denial before they
understand gestural means.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0037179},
Key = {fds351629}
}
@article{fds351630,
Author = {Moné, Y and Monnin, D and Kremer, N},
Title = {The oxidative environment: a mediator of interspecies
communication that drives symbiosis evolution.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {281},
Number = {1785},
Pages = {20133112},
Year = {2014},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3112},
Abstract = {Symbiotic interactions are ubiquitous in nature and play a
major role in driving the evolution of life. Interactions
between partners are often mediated by shared signalling
pathways, which strongly influence both partners' biology
and the evolution of the association in various
environments. As an example of 'common language', the
regulation of the oxidative environment plays an important
role in driving the evolution of symbiotic associations.
Such processes have been occurring for billions of years,
including the increase in Earth's atmospheric oxygen and the
subsequent evolution of mitochondria. The effect of reactive
oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species (RONS) has been
characterized functionally, but the molecular dialogue
between partners has not been integrated within a broader
evolutionary context yet. Given the pleiotropic role of RONS
in cell-cell communication, development and immunity, but
also their associated physiological costs, we discuss here
how their regulation can influence the establishment, the
maintenance and the breakdown of various symbiotic
associations. By synthesizing recent developments in redox
biology, we aim to provide an interdisciplinary
understanding of the influence of such mediators of
interspecies communication on the evolution and stability of
symbioses, which in turn can shape ecosystems and play a
role in health and disease.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2013.3112},
Key = {fds351630}
}
@article{fds351631,
Author = {Köymen, B and Lieven, E and Engemann, DA and Rakoczy, H and Warneken,
F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's norm enforcement in their interactions with
peers.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {85},
Number = {3},
Pages = {1108-1122},
Year = {2014},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12178},
Abstract = {This study investigates how children negotiate social norms
with peers. In Study 1, 48 pairs of 3- and 5-year-olds (N =
96) and in Study 2, 48 pairs of 5- and 7-year-olds (N = 96)
were presented with sorting tasks with conflicting
instructions (one child by color, the other by shape) or
identical instructions. Three-year-olds differed from older
children: They were less selective for the contexts in which
they enforced norms, and they (as well as the older children
to a lesser extent) used grammatical constructions
objectifying the norms ("It works like this" rather than
"You must do it like this"). These results suggested that
children's understanding of social norms becomes more
flexible during the preschool years.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12178},
Key = {fds351631}
}
@article{fds351632,
Author = {Ibbotson, P and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The communicative contexts of grammatical aspect use in
English.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {41},
Number = {3},
Pages = {705-723},
Year = {2014},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000913000135},
Abstract = {In many of the world's languages grammatical aspect is used
to indicate how events unfold over time. In English,
activities that are ongoing can be distinguished from those
that are completed using the morphological marker -ing.
Using naturalistic observations of two children in their
third year of life, we quantify the availability and
reliability of the imperfective form in the communicative
context of the child performing actions. On average, 30% of
verbal descriptions refer to child actions that are grounded
in the here-and-now. Of these utterances, there are two
features of the communicative context that reliably map onto
the functions of the imperfective, namely, that events are
construed as ongoing and from within. The findings are
discussed with reference to how the context in which a child
hears aspectual language may limit the degrees of freedom on
what these constructions mean.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000913000135},
Key = {fds351632}
}
@article{fds320792,
Author = {Wobber, V and Herrmann, E and Hare, B and Wrangham, R and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Differences in the early cognitive development of children
and great apes.},
Journal = {Developmental psychobiology},
Volume = {56},
Number = {3},
Pages = {547-573},
Year = {2014},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/dev.21125},
Abstract = {There is very little research comparing great ape and human
cognition developmentally. In the current studies we
compared a cross-sectional sample of 2- to 4-year-old human
children (n=48) with a large sample of chimpanzees and
bonobos in the same age range (n=42, hereafter: apes) on a
broad array of cognitive tasks. We then followed a group of
juvenile apes (n=44) longitudinally over 3 years to track
their cognitive development in greater detail. In skills of
physical cognition (space, causality, quantities), children
and apes performed comparably at 2 years of age, but by 4
years of age children were more advanced (whereas apes
stayed at their 2-year-old performance levels). In skills of
social cognition (communication, social learning, theory of
mind), children out-performed apes already at 2 years, and
increased this difference even more by 4 years. Patterns of
development differed more between children and apes in the
social domain than the physical domain, with support for
these patterns present in both the cross-sectional and
longitudinal ape data sets. These results indicate key
differences in the pattern and pace of cognitive development
between humans and other apes, particularly in the early
emergence of specific social cognitive capacities in
humans.},
Doi = {10.1002/dev.21125},
Key = {fds320792}
}
@article{fds351633,
Author = {van der Goot, MH and Tomasello, M and Liszkowski,
U},
Title = {Differences in the nonverbal requests of great apes and
human infants.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {85},
Number = {2},
Pages = {444-455},
Year = {2014},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12141},
Abstract = {This study investigated how great apes and human infants use
imperative pointing to request objects. In a series of three
experiments (infants, N = 44; apes, N = 12), subjects were
given the opportunity to either point to a desired object
from a distance or else to approach closer and request it
proximally. The apes always approached close to the object,
signaling their request through instrumental actions. In
contrast, the infants quite often stayed at a distance,
directing the experimenters' attention to the desired object
through index-finger pointing, even when the object was in
the open and they could obtain it by themselves. Findings
distinguish 12-month-olds' imperative pointing from
ontogenetic and phylogenetic earlier forms of ritualized
reaching.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12141},
Key = {fds351633}
}
@article{fds351634,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Over, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Eighteen-month-olds understand false beliefs in an
unexpected-contents task.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {119},
Pages = {120-126},
Year = {2014},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.10.002},
Abstract = {Recent studies suggest that infants understand that others
can have false beliefs. However, most of these studies have
used looking time measures, and the few that have used
behavioral measures are all based on the change-of-location
paradigm, leading to claims that infants might use
behavioral rules instead of mental state understanding to
pass these tests. We investigated infants' false-belief
reasoning using a different paradigm. In this
unexpected-contents helping task, 18-month-olds were
familiarized with boxes for blocks that contained blocks.
When an experimenter subsequently reached for a box for
blocks that now contained a spoon, infants based their
choice of whether to give her a spoon or a block on her true
or false belief about which object the block box contained.
These results help to demonstrate the flexibility of
infants' false-belief understanding.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2013.10.002},
Key = {fds351634}
}
@article{fds351635,
Author = {Schmerse, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Discourse particles and belief reasoning: The case of German
doch},
Journal = {Journal of Semantics},
Volume = {31},
Number = {1},
Pages = {115-133},
Year = {2014},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jos/fft001},
Abstract = {Discourse particles typically express the attitudes of
interlocutors with respect to the propositional content of
an utterance - for example, marking whether or not a speaker
believes the content of the proposition that she uttered. In
German, the particle doch - which has no direct English
translation - is commonly used to correct a belief that is
thought to be common ground among those present. We asked
whether German adults and 5-year-olds are able to infer that
a speaker who utters doch intends to be understood in this
way. Sixty-four children (4;9-5;3 years) and twenty-four
adults participated in a comprehension task in which a
speaker explicitly expressed either a positive belief or a
negative belief. Subsequently, in both conditions, the
speaker checked the truth of her previous belief and
corrected her belief with doch. In both the group of adults
and the group of children, polarity of the speaker's belief
affected hearers' interpretations of the speaker's
utterance. In a third condition we investigated whether
participants could also perform the more difficult task of
interpreting the speaker's utterance with doch while
inferring the speaker's belief. Whereas adults showed a
similar performance as in the explicit belief conditions,
children showed limited abilities in keeping track of the
speaker's belief. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford
University Press. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1093/jos/fft001},
Key = {fds351635}
}
@article{fds351636,
Author = {Liebal, K and Vaish, A and Haun, D and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Correction: Does sympathy motivate prosocial behaviour in
great apes? (PLoS ONE)},
Journal = {PLoS ONE},
Volume = {9},
Number = {1},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/annotation/1fe9c2b8-84dd-44c4-a4ba-b62e0460b513},
Doi = {10.1371/annotation/1fe9c2b8-84dd-44c4-a4ba-b62e0460b513},
Key = {fds351636}
}
@article{fds321685,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The ultra-social animal},
Journal = {European Journal of Social Psychology},
Volume = {44},
Number = {3},
Pages = {187-194},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2015},
Abstract = {In evolutionary perspective, what is most remarkable about
human sociality is its many and diverse forms of
cooperation. Here, I provide an overview of some recent
research, mostly from our laboratory, comparing human
children with their nearest living relatives, the great
apes, in various tests of collaboration, prosocial behavior,
conformity, and group-mindedness (e.g., following and
enforcing social norms). This is done in the context of a
hypothetical evolutionary scenario comprising two ordered
steps: a first step in which early humans began
collaborating with others in unique ways in their everyday
foraging and a second step in which modern humans began
forming cultural groups. Humans' unique forms of sociality
help to explain their unique forms of cognition and
morality. © 2014.},
Doi = {10.1002/ejsp.2015},
Key = {fds321685}
}
@article{fds351637,
Author = {Liebal, K and Vaish, A and Haun, D and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Does sympathy motivate prosocial behaviour in great
apes?},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {9},
Number = {1},
Pages = {e84299},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084299},
Abstract = {Prosocial behaviours such as helping, comforting, or sharing
are central to human social life. Because they emerge early
in ontogeny, it has been proposed that humans are prosocial
by nature and that from early on empathy and sympathy
motivate such behaviours. The emerging question is whether
humans share these abilities to feel with and for someone
with our closest relatives, the great apes. Although several
studies demonstrated that great apes help others, little is
known about their underlying motivations. This study
addresses this issue and investigates whether four species
of great apes (Pongo pygmaeus, Gorilla gorilla, Pan
troglodytes, Pan paniscus) help a conspecific more after
observing the conspecific being harmed (a human experimenter
steals the conspecific's food) compared to a condition where
no harming occurred. Results showed that in regard to the
occurrence of prosocial behaviours, only orangutans, but not
the African great apes, help others when help is needed,
contrasting prior findings on chimpanzees. However, with the
exception of one population of orangutans that helped
significantly more after a conspecific was harmed than when
no harm occurred, prosocial behaviour in great apes was not
motivated by concern for others.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0084299},
Key = {fds351637}
}
@article{fds351644,
Author = {Nitzschner, M and Kaminski, J and Melis, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Side matters: Potential mechanisms underlying dogs'
performance in a social eavesdropping paradigm},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {90},
Pages = {263-271},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.01.035},
Abstract = {Social eavesdropping is the gathering of information by
observing interactions between other individuals. Previous
studies have claimed that dogs, Canis familiaris, are able
to use information obtained via social eavesdropping, that
is, preferring a generous over a selfish human donor.
However, in these studies the side was constant between the
demonstrations and the dogs' choices, not controlling for
potential location biases. In the crucial control condition
of our experiments, the donors swapped places in half of the
trials before the dogs chose. We found that first choice
behaviour as well as the time dogs interacted with the
generous donor were influenced by location (side). In a
second experiment the subject's owner interacted with the
two donors. Again, the result of the side control revealed
that the critical factor was location (side) not person. The
results of these experiments provide no evidence for social
eavesdropping in dogs and show the importance of critical
control conditions. © 2014 The Association for the Study of
Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.01.035},
Key = {fds351644}
}
@article{fds351645,
Author = {Vogelsang, M and Jensen, K and Kirschner, S and Tennie, C and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Preschoolers are sensitive to free riding in a public goods
game},
Journal = {Frontiers in Psychology},
Volume = {5},
Number = {JUL},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00729},
Abstract = {Despite the benefits of cooperation, selfish individuals
often produce outcomes where everyone is worse off. This
"tragedy of the commons" has been demonstrated
experimentally in adults with the public goods game.
Contributions to a public good decline over time due to
free-riders who keep their endowments. Little is known about
how children behave when confronted with this social
dilemma. Forty-eight preschoolers were tested using a novel
non-verbal procedure and simplified choices more appropriate
to their age than standard economic approaches. The rate of
cooperation was initially very low and rose in the second
round for the girls only. Children were affected by their
previous outcome, as they free rode more after experiencing
a lower outcome compared to the other group members. © 2014
Vogelsang, Jensen, Kirschner, Tennie and
Tomasello.},
Doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00729},
Key = {fds351645}
}
@article{fds351646,
Author = {Warneken, F and Steinwender, J and Hamann, K and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's planning in a collaborative problem-solving
task},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {31},
Number = {1},
Pages = {48-58},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.02.003},
Abstract = {One important component of collaborative problem solving is
the ability to plan one's own action in relation to that of
a partner. We presented 3- and 5-year-old peer pairs with
two different tool choice situations in which they had to
choose complementary tools with which to subsequently work
on a collaborative problem-solving apparatus. In the
bidirectional condition, exemplars of the two necessary
tools appeared in front of each child. In the unidirectional
condition, one child had to choose between two different
tools first, while the other child had only one tool
available. Thus, both conditions required close attention to
the actions of the partner, but the unidirectional condition
additionally required the anticipation of the partner's
constrained tool choice. Five-year-olds were proficient
planners in both conditions, whereas 3-year-olds did not
consistently make the correct choice. However, 3-year-olds
who had first experienced the unidirectional condition chose
the correct tool at an above-chance level. Moreover,
communication during the tool choice led to greater success
among 3-year-olds, but not among 5-year-olds. These results
provide the first experimental evidence that between 3 and 5
years of age children develop the ability to plan the
division of labor in a collaborative task. We discuss our
findings regarding planning for a collaborative task in
relation to prior research on planning abilities for
individual problem-solving that appear to undergo
developmental change between 3 and 5 years of age. © 2014
Elsevier Inc.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.02.003},
Key = {fds351646}
}
@article{fds351647,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M},
Title = {Dueling dualists : Commentary on carpendale, atwood, and
kettner},
Journal = {Human Development},
Volume = {56},
Number = {6},
Pages = {401-405},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000357237},
Doi = {10.1159/000357237},
Key = {fds351647}
}
@article{fds351648,
Author = {Göckeritz, S and Schmidt, MFH and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's creation and transmission of social
norms},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {30},
Number = {1},
Pages = {81-95},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.01.003},
Abstract = {Children's lives are governed by social norms. Since Piaget,
however, it has been assumed that they understand very
little about how norms work. Recent studies in which
children enforce social norms indicate a richer
understanding, but children are still relating to
pre-existing adult norms. In this study, triads of
5-year-olds worked on an instrumental task without adult
guidance. Children spontaneously created social norms
regarding how the game "should" be played. They transmitted
these with special force (using more generic and objective
language) to novices, suggesting that young children
understand to some degree, the conventional nature and
special force of social norms in binding all who would
participate. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.01.003},
Key = {fds351648}
}
@article{fds351649,
Author = {Moll, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two- and 3-Year-Olds Know What Others Have and Have Not
Heard},
Journal = {Journal of Cognition and Development},
Volume = {15},
Number = {1},
Pages = {12-21},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2012.710865},
Abstract = {Recent studies have established that even infants can
determine what others know based on previous visual
experience. In the current study, we investigated whether 2-
and 3-year-olds know what others know based on previous
auditory experience. A child and an adult heard the sound of
one object together, but only the child heard the sound of
another (target) object. When later the sounds of both
objects were played simultaneously, the adult reacted with
surprise and excitement ("Oh, listen, what is that?"). In
response, both 24- and 36-month-olds directed the adult's
attention to the target more often than chance and more
often than in a control condition in which the adult had
heard neither sound. These results indicate that by 24
months of age, children's understanding of others' knowledge
and ignorance is not limited to the visual domain but
extends across perceptual domains. © 2014 Taylor and
Francis Group, LLC.},
Doi = {10.1080/15248372.2012.710865},
Key = {fds351649}
}
@article{fds351650,
Author = {Hertel, A and Kaminski, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Generalize or personalize--do dogs transfer an acquired rule
to novel situations and persons?},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {9},
Number = {7},
Pages = {e102666},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102666},
Abstract = {Recent studies have raised the question of whether dogs,
like human infants, comprehend an established rule as
generalizable, normative knowledge or rather as episodic
information, existing only in the immediate situation. In
the current study we tested whether dogs disobeyed a
prohibition to take a treat (i) in the presence of the
communicator of the ban, (ii) after a temporary absence of
the communicator, and (iii) in the presence of a novel
person. Dogs disobeyed the rule significantly more often
when the communicator left the room for a moment or when
they were faced with a new person, than when she stayed
present in the room. These results indicate that dogs
"forget" a rule as soon as the immediate human context
becomes disrupted.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0102666},
Key = {fds351650}
}
@article{fds351651,
Author = {Tempelmann, S and Kaminski, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do domestic dogs learn words based on humans' referential
behaviour?},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {9},
Number = {3},
Pages = {e91014},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091014},
Abstract = {Some domestic dogs learn to comprehend human words, although
the nature and basis of this learning is unknown. In the
studies presented here we investigated whether dogs learn
words through an understanding of referential actions by
humans rather than simple association. In three studies,
each modelled on a study conducted with human infants, we
confronted four word-experienced dogs with situations
involving no spatial-temporal contiguity between the word
and the referent; the only available cues were referential
actions displaced in time from exposure to their referents.
We found that no dogs were able to reliably link an object
with a label based on social-pragmatic cues alone in all the
tests. However, one dog did show skills in some tests,
possibly indicating an ability to learn based on
social-pragmatic cues.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0091014},
Key = {fds351651}
}
@article{fds351652,
Author = {Dittmar, M and Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Familiar verbs are not always easier than novel verbs: how
German pre-school children comprehend active and passive
sentences.},
Journal = {Cognitive science},
Volume = {38},
Number = {1},
Pages = {128-151},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12066},
Abstract = {Many studies show a developmental advantage for transitive
sentences with familiar verbs over those with novel verbs.
It might be that once familiar verbs become entrenched in
particular constructions, they would be more difficult to
understand (than would novel verbs) in non-prototypical
constructions. We provide support for this hypothesis
investigating German children using a forced-choice pointing
paradigm with reversed agent-patient roles. We tested active
transitive verbs in study 1. The 2-year olds were better
with familiar than novel verbs, while the 2½-year olds
pointed correctly for both. In study 2, we tested passives:
2½-year olds were significantly below chance for familiar
verbs and at chance for novel verbs, supporting the
hypothesis that the entrenchment of the familiar verbs in
the active transitive voice was interfering with
interpreting them in the passive voice construction. The
3½-year olds were also at chance for novel verbs but above
chance with familiar verbs. We interpret this as reflecting
a lessening of the verb-in-construction entrenchment as the
child develops knowledge that particular verbs can occur in
a range of constructions. The 4½-year olds were above
chance for both familiar and novel verbs. We discuss our
findings in terms of the relative entrenchment of lexical
and syntactic information and to interference between
them.},
Doi = {10.1111/cogs.12066},
Key = {fds351652}
}
@article{fds351653,
Author = {Hamann, K and Bender, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Meritocratic sharing is based on collaboration in
3-year-olds.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {50},
Number = {1},
Pages = {121-128},
Year = {2014},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0032965},
Abstract = {The present study investigated young preschoolers'
proportional allocation of rewards in 2 different work
contexts. We presented 32 pairs of 3.5-year-old peers with a
collaborative task to obtain rewards by pulling ropes. In
order to establish differences in work input, 1 child's rope
was not immediately accessible but had to be retrieved from
the apparatus by means of a specific tool, while the other
child had no such additional work to do. The result of the
game was that 1 individual received 1 toy and the other
received 3 toys. In the Deserving condition, the working
child received the 3 toys (thus work and reward matched),
whereas in the Undeserving condition, the other child
received the 3 toys (he or she was overpaid, and the working
child was underpaid). Another 32 dyads participated in a
noncollaborative, parallel work task, again in a Deserving
condition and an Undeserving condition. On average, children
with 3 toys shared with their partner more in the
Undeserving condition than in the Deserving condition after
collaboration but not in a parallel work setup. These
results suggest that young children take merit into account
in distributing resources at a much younger age than
previously believed and that peer collaboration is an
especially facilitative context for children's attention to
norms of fairness.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0032965},
Key = {fds351653}
}
@article{fds351654,
Author = {Bannard, C and Klinger, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How selective are 3-year-olds in imitating novel linguistic
material?},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {49},
Number = {12},
Pages = {2344-2356},
Year = {2013},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0032062},
Abstract = {In 3 studies we explored when 3-year-olds would imitate
novel words in utterances produced by adult speakers. Child
and experimenter took turns in requesting objects from a
game master. The experimenter always went first and always
preceded the object's familiar name with a novel adjective
(e.g., "the dilsige duck"). In the first 2 experiments, we
found that children were more likely to reproduce the
adjective when there were 2 different instances of the same
object present in the situation than when there was only 1
or when there were 2 objects of different types present.
Thus, children seemed to be sensitive to the descriptive and
contrastive function of the adjectives in determining which
parts of the utterances to reproduce. Nonetheless,
replication of even redundant material was over 50%,
suggesting a strategy of somewhat blind copying. In the 3rd
experiment, we found that children were less likely to
reproduce a redundant adjective when the speaker indicated
gesturally that he did not intend to produce it than when he
clearly produced it intentionally. We distinguish insightful
imitation (the copying of a speaker's goal and means when
motivated by insight into why those particular means were
chosen) and blind imitation (the copying of a speaker's goal
and means with no awareness of why those specific means were
chosen) from mimicry. We explore the roles that these modes
of imitation might play in language development.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0032062},
Key = {fds351654}
}
@article{fds351655,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children understand and defend the entitlements of
others.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {116},
Number = {4},
Pages = {930-944},
Year = {2013},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.013},
Abstract = {Human social life is structured by social norms creating
both obligations and entitlements. Recent research has found
that young children enforce simple obligations against norm
violators by protesting. It is not known, however, whether
they understand entitlements in the sense that they will
actively object to a second party attempting to interfere in
something that a third party is entitled to do-what we call
counter-protest. In two studies, we found that 3-year-old
children understand when a person is entitled to do
something, and so they actively defend this person's
entitlement against unjustified interference from second
parties. In some cases, they even enforce second-order
entitlements, for example, in the case of ownership where an
owner is entitled to entitle others to use the owner's
property.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.013},
Key = {fds351655}
}
@article{fds320793,
Author = {Grosse, G and Scott-Phillips, TC and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Three-year-olds hide their communicative intentions in
appropriate contexts.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {49},
Number = {11},
Pages = {2095-2101},
Year = {2013},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0032017},
Abstract = {Human cooperative communication involves both an informative
intention that the recipient understands the content of the
signal and also a (Gricean) communicative intention that the
recipient recognizes that the speaker has an informative
intention. The degree to which children understand this
2-layered nature of communication is the subject of some
debate. One phenomenon that would seem to constitute clear
evidence of such understanding is hidden authorship, in
which informative acts are produced but with the
communicative intent behind them intentionally hidden. In
this study, 3- and 5-year-old children were told that an
adult was seeking a toy but wanted to find it on her own.
Children of both ages often did something to make the toy
easier for the adult to see while at the same time
concealing their actions in some way. This suggests that by
the age of 3, children are able to separate the multiple
layers of intentionality involved in human cooperative
communication.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0032017},
Key = {fds320793}
}
@article{fds351656,
Author = {Schulze, C and Grassmann, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {3-year-old children make relevance inferences in indirect
verbal communication.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {84},
Number = {6},
Pages = {2079-2093},
Year = {2013},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12093},
Abstract = {Three studies investigated 3-year-old children's ability to
determine a speaker's communicative intent when the
speaker's overt utterance related to that intent only
indirectly. Studies 1 and 2 examined children's
comprehension of indirectly stated requests (e.g., "I find
Xs good" can imply, in context, a request for X; N = 32).
Study 3 investigated 3- and 4-year-old children's and
adults' (N = 52) comprehension of the implications of a
speaker responding to an offer by mentioning an action's
fulfilled or unfulfilled precondition (e.g., responding to
an offer of cereal by stating that we have no milk implies
rejection of the cereal). In all studies, 3-year-old
children were able to make the relevance inference necessary
to integrate utterances meaningfully into the ongoing
context.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12093},
Key = {fds351656}
}
@article{fds351657,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Over, H and Herrmann, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children care more about their reputation with ingroup
members and potential reciprocators.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {16},
Number = {6},
Pages = {952-958},
Year = {2013},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12086},
Abstract = {Human cooperation depends on individuals caring about their
reputation, and so they sometimes attempt to manage them
strategically. Here we show that even 5-year-old children
strategically manage their reputation. In an experimental
setting, children shared significantly more resources with
an anonymous recipient when (1) the child watching them
could reciprocate later, and (2) the child watching them was
an ingroup rather than an outgroup member (as established by
minimal group markers). This study is not only the first to
show that young children selectively invest in their
reputation with specific individuals, but also the first to
show that we care more about our reputation with ingroup
than with outgroup members.},
Doi = {10.1111/desc.12086},
Key = {fds351657}
}
@article{fds351658,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, recognize successful actions,
but fail toimitate them},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {86},
Number = {4},
Pages = {755-761},
Year = {2013},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.07.015},
Abstract = {Cultural transmission, by definition, involves some form of
social learning. Chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates
clearly engage in some forms of social learning enabling
some types of cultural transmission, but there is
controversy about whether they copy the actual bodily
actions of demonstrators. In this study chimpanzees
recognized when a human actor was using particular bodily
actions that had led to successful problem solving in the
past. But then when it was their turn to solve the problem,
they did not reproduce the human actor's bodily actions
themselves, even though they were clearly capable of
producing the movements. These results help us identify more
precisely key reasons for the differences in the social
learning and cultural transmission of humans and other
primates. © 2013 The Association for the Study of Animal
Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.07.015},
Key = {fds351658}
}
@article{fds351659,
Author = {Wittig, M and Jensen, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Five-year-olds understand fair as equal in a mini-ultimatum
game.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {116},
Number = {2},
Pages = {324-337},
Year = {2013},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.004},
Abstract = {In studies of children's resource distribution, it is almost
always the case that "fair" means an equal amount for all.
In the mini-ultimatum game, players are confronted with
situations in which fair does not always mean equal, and so
the recipient of an offer needs to take into account the
alternatives the proposer had available to her or him.
Because of its forced-choice design, the mini-ultimatum game
measures sensitivity to unfair intentions in addition to
unfair outcomes. In the current study, we gave a
mini-ultimatum game to 5-year-old children, allowing us to
determine the nature of fairness sensitivity at a period
after false belief awareness is typically passed and before
formal schooling begins. The only situation in which
responders rejected offers was when the proposer could have
made an equal offer. But unlike adults, they did not employ
more sophisticated notions of fairness that take into
account the choices facing the proposer. Proposers, in their
turn, were also not adult-like in that they had a very poor
understanding that responders would reject unequal offers
when an equal one was available. Thus, preschool children
seem to understand "fair=equal" in this task, but not much
more, and they are not yet skillful at anticipating what
others will find fair beyond 50/50 splits.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.004},
Key = {fds351659}
}
@article{fds351660,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The emergence of contingent reciprocity in young
children.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {116},
Number = {2},
Pages = {338-350},
Year = {2013},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.002},
Abstract = {Contingent reciprocity is important in theories of the
evolution of human cooperation, but it has been very little
studied in ontogeny. We gave 2- and 3-year-old children the
opportunity to either help or share with a partner after
that partner either had or had not previously helped or
shared with the children. Previous helping did not influence
children's helping. In contrast, previous sharing by the
partner led to greater sharing in 3-year-olds but not in
2-year-olds. These results do not support theories claiming
either that reciprocity is fundamental to the origins of
children's prosocial behavior or that it is irrelevant.
Instead, they support an account in which children's
prosocial behavior emerges spontaneously but is later
mediated by reciprocity.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2013.06.002},
Key = {fds351660}
}
@article{fds351661,
Author = {Wyman, E and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Non-verbal communication enables children's coordination in
a "Stag Hunt" game},
Journal = {European Journal of Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {10},
Number = {5},
Pages = {597-610},
Year = {2013},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2012.726469},
Abstract = {This study assessed the role of non-verbal communication in
4-year-old children's decisions to coordinate with others.
During a "Stag Hunt" game, the child and an adult
individually and continually collected low-value prizes
(hares). Occasionally, an alternative option of collecting a
high-value prize (stag) cooperatively with the adult arose,
but entailed a risk: a lone attempt on this prize by either
player would leave that player empty handed. Children
coordinated with the adult to obtain the high-value prize
more often when that adult made mutual eye contact and
smiled at them than when she attended to the prizes only.
This suggests that neither verbal nor gestural communication
are necessary for coordination: Minimal, non-verbal
communication enables children's coordination with others
towards joint goals. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis
Group, LLC.},
Doi = {10.1080/17405629.2012.726469},
Key = {fds351661}
}
@article{fds351662,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Uebel, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Being mimicked increases prosocial behavior in 18-month-old
infants.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {84},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1511-1518},
Year = {2013},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12083},
Abstract = {Most previous research on imitation in infancy has focused
on infants' learning of instrumental actions on objects.
This study focused instead on the more social side of
imitation, testing whether being mimicked increases
prosocial behavior in infants, as it does in adults (van
Baaren, Holland, Kawakami, & van Knippenberg, 2004).
Eighteen-month-old infants (N = 48) were either mimicked
or not by an experimenter; then either that experimenter or
a different adult needed help. Infants who had previously
been mimicked were significantly more likely to help both
adults than infants who had not been mimicked. Thus, even in
infancy, mimicry has positive social consequences: It
promotes a general prosocial orientation toward
others.},
Doi = {10.1111/cdev.12083},
Key = {fds351662}
}
@article{fds351663,
Author = {Graf, E and Theakston, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Subject and object omission in children's early transitive
constructions: A discourse-pragmatic approach},
Journal = {Applied Psycholinguistics},
Volume = {36},
Number = {3},
Pages = {701-727},
Year = {2013},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716413000477},
Abstract = {This paper investigates discourse effects on the provision
of both subjects and objects and investigates whether
pragmatic discourse features govern the realization/omission
of both constituents alike. In an elicitation study, we
examined how the discourse-pragmatic feature contrast, as
applied to the subject, verb, or object of a transitive
utterance affected the provision of elements in the
remainder of the sentence when all elements were previously
introduced. The results showed that 3.5-year-old children
were more likely to realize a contrasted argument with a
lexical noun but more likely to omit the argument when it
was not part of a contrast, regardless of its subject or
object status. This suggests that contrast presents a
unifying discourse feature for argument omission in language
development.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0142716413000477},
Key = {fds351663}
}
@article{fds351664,
Author = {Ibbotson, P and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The attention-grammar interface: Eye-gaze cues structural
choice in children and adults},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {24},
Number = {3},
Pages = {457-481},
Year = {2013},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2013-0020},
Abstract = {We investigated whether children (3- and 4-year-olds) and
adults can use the active passive alternation - essentially
a choice of subject - in a way that is consistent with the
eye-gaze of the speaker. Previous work suggests the function
of the subject position can be grounded in attentional
mechanisms (Tomlin 1995, 1997). Eye-gaze is one powerful
source of directing attention that we know adults and young
children are sensitive to; furthermore, we know adults are
more likely to look at the subject of their sentence than
any other character (Gleitman et al. 2007; Griffin and Bock
2000). We demonstrate that older children and adults are
able to use speaker-gaze to choose a felicitous subject when
describing a scene with both agent-focused and patient
focused cues. Integrating attentional and grammatical
information in this way allows children to limit the degrees
of freedom on what the function of certain linguistic
constructions might be.},
Doi = {10.1515/cog-2013-0020},
Key = {fds351664}
}
@article{fds351665,
Author = {Halina, M and Rossano, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The ontogenetic ritualization of bonobo gestures.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {16},
Number = {4},
Pages = {653-666},
Year = {2013},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0601-7},
Abstract = {Great apes communicate with gestures in flexible ways. Based
on several lines of evidence, Tomasello and colleagues have
posited that many of these gestures are learned via
ontogenetic ritualization-a process of mutual anticipation
in which particular social behaviors come to function as
intentional communicative signals. Recently, Byrne and
colleagues have argued that all great ape gestures are
basically innate. In the current study, for the first time,
we attempted to observe the process of ontogenetic
ritualization as it unfolds over time. We focused on one
communicative function between bonobo mothers and infants:
initiation of "carries" for joint travel. We observed 1,173
carries in ten mother-infant dyads. These were initiated by
nine different gesture types, with mothers and infants using
many different gestures in ways that reflected their
different roles in the carry interaction. There was also a
fair amount of variability among the different dyads,
including one idiosyncratic gesture used by one infant. This
gestural variation could not be attributed to sampling
effects alone. These findings suggest that ontogenetic
ritualization plays an important role in the origin of at
least some great ape gestures.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-013-0601-7},
Key = {fds351665}
}
@article{fds351666,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children sympathize less in response to unjustified
emotional distress.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {49},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1132-1138},
Year = {2013},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029501},
Abstract = {Three-year-old children saw an adult displaying the exact
same distress in 3 different conditions: (a) the adult's
distress was appropriate to a genuine harm, (b) the adult's
distress was an overreaction to a minor inconvenience, and
(c) there was no apparent cause for the adult's distress.
Children who witnessed the adult being appropriately upset
showed concern for him, intervened on his behalf, and
checked on him when he later expressed distress out of their
view. Children who did not know the cause for the adult's
distress responded similarly. In contrast, children who
witnessed the adult overreacting to an inconvenience showed
lower rates of intervening and checking. The degree of
children's concern across conditions was correlated with the
latency of their helping behavior toward the adult later.
These results suggest that from an early age, young
children's sympathy and prosocial behavior are not automatic
responses to emotional displays but, rather, involve taking
into account whether the displayed distress is
justified.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0029501},
Key = {fds351666}
}
@article{fds351667,
Author = {Schmerse, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Error patterns in young German children's
wh-questions.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {40},
Number = {3},
Pages = {656-671},
Year = {2013},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000912000104},
Abstract = {In this article we report two studies: a detailed
longitudinal analysis of errors in wh-questions from six
German-learning children (age 2 ; 0-3 ; 0) and an analysis
of the prosodic characteristics of wh-questions in German
child-directed speech. The results of the first study
demonstrate that German-learning children frequently omit
the initial wh-word. A lexical analysis of wh-less questions
revealed that children are more likely to omit the wh-word
was ('what') than other wh-words (e.g. wo 'where'). In the
second study, we performed an acoustic analysis of sixty
wh-questions that one mother produced during her child's
third year of life. The results show that the wh-word was is
much less likely to be accented than the wh-word wo,
indicating a relationship between children's omission of
wh-words and the stress patterns associated with
wh-questions. The findings are discussed in the light of
discourse-pragmatic and metrical accounts of omission
errors.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000912000104},
Key = {fds351667}
}
@article{fds351668,
Author = {Moore, R and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Three-year-olds understand communicative intentions without
language, gestures, or gaze},
Journal = {Interaction Studies},
Volume = {14},
Number = {1},
Pages = {62-80},
Year = {2013},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/is.14.1.05moo},
Abstract = {The communicative interactions of very young children almost
always involve language (based on conventions), gesture
(based on bodily deixis or iconicity) and directed gaze. In
this study, ninety-six children (3;0 years) were asked to
determine the location of a hidden toy by understanding a
communicative act that contained none of these familiar
means. A light-and-sound mechanism placed behind the hiding
place and illuminated by a centrally placed switch was used
to indicate the location of the toy. After a communicative
training session, an experimenter pressed the switch either
deliberately or accidentally, and with or without ostension
(in the form of eye contact and child-directed speech). In
no condition did she orient towards the hiding place. When
the switch was pressed intentionally, children used the
light-and-sound cue to find the toy - and tended to do so
even in the absence of ostensive eye contact. When the
experimenter pressed the switch accidentally, children
searched randomly - demonstrating that they were tracking
her communicative intent, and not merely choosing on the
basis of salience. The absence of an effect of ostension
contradicts research that ostension helps children to
interpret the communicative intentions underlying unfamiliar
signs. We explain this by concluding that while it may play
a role in establishing a communicative interaction, it is
not necessary for sustaining one; and that even with a
highly novel communicative act - involving none of the means
of communication on which children typically rely -
three-year-olds can comprehend the communicative intentions
behind an intentionally produced act. © John Benjamins
Publishing Company.},
Doi = {10.1075/is.14.1.05moo},
Key = {fds351668}
}
@article{fds351669,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Parental Presence and Encouragement Do Not Influence Helping
in Young Children},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {18},
Number = {3},
Pages = {345-368},
Year = {2013},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00120.x},
Abstract = {Young children begin helping others with simple instrumental
problems from soon after their first birthdays. In previous
observations of this phenomenon, both naturalistic and
experimental, children's parents were in the room and could
potentially have influenced their behavior. In the two
current studies, we gave 24-month-old children the
opportunity to help an unfamiliar adult obtain an
out-of-reach object when the parent (or a friendly female
adult) (i) was present but passive, (ii) was present and
highlighted the problem for the child, (iii) was present and
actively encouraged the child to help, (iv) was present and
ordered the child to help, or (v) was absent from the room.
The children helped at relatively high levels and equally
under all these treatment conditions. There was also no
differential effect of treatment condition on children's
helping in a subsequent test phase in which no parent was
present, and children had to disengage from a fun activity
to help. Young children's helping behavior is not
potentiated or facilitated by parental behavior in the
immediate situation, suggesting that it is spontaneous and
intrinsically motivated. Copyright © International Society
on Infant Studies (ISIS).},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00120.x},
Key = {fds351669}
}
@article{fds351670,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Keckeisen, M and Pitsch, A and Kaminski, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Domestic dogs conceal auditory but not visual information
from others.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {16},
Number = {3},
Pages = {351-359},
Year = {2013},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0576-9},
Abstract = {A number of studies have shown that dogs are sensitive to a
human's perspective, but it remains unclear whether they use
an egocentric strategy to assess what humans perceive. We
investigated whether dogs know what a human can see and
hear, even when the dogs themselves are unable to see the
human. Dogs faced a task in which forbidden food was placed
in a tunnel that they could retrieve by using their paw.
Whereas the dogs could not see the experimenter during their
food retrieval attempts, the experimenter could potentially
see the dog's paw. In the first experiment, dogs could
choose between an opaque and a transparent side of the
tunnel, and in the second experiment, they could choose
between a silent and a noisy approach to the tunnel. The
results showed that dogs preferred a silent approach to
forbidden food but they did not hide their approach when
they could not see a human present. We conclude that dogs
probably rely on what they themselves can perceive when they
assess what the human can see and hear.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0576-9},
Key = {fds351670}
}
@article{fds351671,
Author = {Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzee responders still behave like rational
maximizers.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {110},
Number = {20},
Pages = {E1837},
Year = {2013},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1303627110},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1303627110},
Key = {fds351671}
}
@article{fds351672,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Pitsch, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Dogs steal in the dark.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {16},
Number = {3},
Pages = {385-394},
Year = {2013},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0579-6},
Abstract = {All current evidence of visual perspective taking in dogs
can possibly be explained by dogs reacting to certain
stimuli rather than understanding what others see. In the
current study, we set up a situation in which contextual
information and social cues are in conflict. A human always
forbade the dog from taking a piece of food. The part of the
room being illuminated was then varied, for example, either
the area where the human was seated or the area where the
food was located was lit. Results show that dogs steal
significantly more food when it is dark compared to when it
is light. While stealing forbidden food the dog's behaviour
also depends on the type of illumination in the room.
Illumination around the food, but not the human, affected
the dogs' behaviour. This indicates that dogs do not take
the sight of the human as a signal to avoid the food. It
also cannot be explained by a low-level associative rule of
avoiding illuminated food which dogs actually approach
faster when they are in private. The current finding
therefore raises the possibility that dogs take into account
the human's visual access to the food while making their
decision to steal it.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0579-6},
Key = {fds351672}
}
@article{fds351673,
Author = {Scheider, L and Kaminski, J and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Do domestic dogs interpret pointing as a
command?},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {16},
Number = {3},
Pages = {361-372},
Year = {2013},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0577-8},
Abstract = {Domestic dogs comprehend human gestural communication
flexibly, particularly the pointing gesture. Here, we
examine whether dogs interpret pointing informatively, that
is, as simply providing information, or rather as a command,
for example, ordering them to move to a particular location.
In the first study a human pointed toward an empty cup. In
one manipulation, the dog either knew or did not know that
the designated cup was empty (and that the other cup
actually contained the food). In another manipulation, the
human (as authority) either did or did not remain in the
room after pointing. Dogs ignored the human's gesture if
they had better information, irrespective of the authority's
presence. In the second study, we varied the level of
authority of the person pointing. Sometimes this person was
an adult, and sometimes a young child. Dogs followed
children's pointing just as frequently as they followed
adults' pointing (and ignored the dishonest pointing of
both), suggesting that the level of authority did not affect
their behavior. Taken together these studies suggest that
dogs do not see pointing as an imperative command ordering
them to a particular location. It is still not totally
clear, however, if they interpret it as informative or in
some other way.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0577-8},
Key = {fds351673}
}
@article{fds351674,
Author = {Melis, AP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees' (Pan troglodytes) strategic helping in a
collaborative task.},
Journal = {Biology letters},
Volume = {9},
Number = {2},
Pages = {20130009},
Year = {2013},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0009},
Abstract = {Many animal species cooperate, but the underlying proximate
mechanisms are often unclear. We presented chimpanzees with
a mutualistic collaborative food-retrieval task requiring
complementary roles, and tested subjects' ability to help
their partner perform her role. For each role, subjects
required a different tool, and the tools were not
interchangeable. We gave one individual in each dyad both
tools, and measured subjects' willingness to transfer a tool
to their partner as well as which tool (correct versus
incorrect) they transferred. Most subjects helped their
partner and transferred the tool the partner needed. Thus,
chimpanzees not only coordinate different roles, but they
also know which particular action the partner needs to
perform. These results add to previous findings suggesting
that many of chimpanzees' limitations in collaboration are,
perhaps, more motivational than cognitive.},
Doi = {10.1098/rsbl.2013.0009},
Key = {fds351674}
}
@article{fds351675,
Author = {Moll, H and Meltzoff, AN and Merzsch, K and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Taking versus confronting visual perspectives in preschool
children.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {49},
Number = {4},
Pages = {646-654},
Year = {2013},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028633},
Abstract = {Recent evidence suggests that 3-year-olds can take other
people's visual perspectives not only when they perceive
different things (Level 1) but even when they see the same
thing differently (Level 2). One hypothesis is that
3-year-olds are good perspective takers but cannot confront
different perspectives on the same object (Perner, Stummer,
Sprung, & Doherty, 2002). In 2 studies using color filters,
3-year-olds were unable to judge in what color they and an
adult saw the same picture. This was the case irrespective
of whether children replied verbally (pilot study) or by
pointing to color samples (main study). However, 3-year-olds
readily took an adult's perspective by determining which of
2 objects an adult referred to as being a certain color,
independently from how the children saw the objects (main
study). Taken together, these results suggest that
preschoolers' difficulty is not so much taking perspectives
as it is directly confronting another's view with their
own-an ability that seems to be acquired between 4 and 5
years of age.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0028633},
Key = {fds351675}
}
@article{fds351676,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Bös, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) coordinate their actions in
a problem-solving task.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {16},
Number = {2},
Pages = {273-285},
Year = {2013},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0571-1},
Abstract = {Cooperative hunting is a cognitively challenging activity
since individuals have to coordinate movements with a
partner and at the same time react to the prey. Domestic
dogs evolved from wolves, who engage in cooperative hunting
regularly, but it is not clear whether dogs have kept their
cooperative hunting skills. We presented pairs of dogs with
a reward behind a fence with two openings in it. A sliding
door operated by the experimenter could block one opening
but not both simultaneously. The dogs needed to coordinate
their actions, so that each was in front of a different
opening, if one of them was to cross through and get food.
All 24 dog pairs solved the problem. In study 1, we
demonstrated that dogs understood how the apparatus worked.
In study 2, we found that, although the performance of the
pairs did not depend on the divisibility of the reward,
pairs were quicker at coordinating their actions when both
anticipated rewards. However, the dogs did not monitor one
another, suggesting that their solutions were achieved by
each individual attempting to maximize for
itself.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0571-1},
Key = {fds351676}
}
@article{fds351677,
Author = {Salomo, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's ability to answer different types of
questions.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {40},
Number = {2},
Pages = {469-491},
Year = {2013},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000912000050},
Abstract = {Young children answer many questions every day. The extent
to which they do this in an adult-like way - following
Grice's Maxim of Quantity by providing the requested
information, no more no less - has been studied very little.
In an experiment, we found that two-, three- and
four-year-old children are quite skilled at answering
argument-focus questions and predicate-focus questions with
intransitives in which their response requires only a single
element. But predicate-focus questions for transitives -
requiring both the predicate and the direct object - are
difficult for children below four years of age. Even more
difficult for children this young are sentence-focus
questions such as "What's happening?", which give the child
no anchor in given information around which to structure
their answer. In addition, in a corpus study, we found that
parents ask their children predicate-focus and
sentence-focus questions very infrequently, thus giving
children little experience with them.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000912000050},
Key = {fds351677}
}
@article{fds351678,
Author = {Liebal, K and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of cultural common
ground.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {31},
Number = {Pt 1},
Pages = {88-96},
Year = {2013},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-835x.2012.02080.x},
Abstract = {Human social interaction depends on individuals identifying
the common ground they have with others, based both on
personally shared experiences and on cultural common ground
that all members of the group share. We introduced 3- and
5-year-old children to a culturally well-known object and a
novel object. An experimenter then entered and asked, 'What
is that?', either as a request for information or in a
recognitory way. When she was requesting information, both
3- and 5-year-olds assumed she was asking about the novel
object. When she seemed to recognize an object, 5-year-olds
assumed she was referring to the culturally well-known
object. Thus, by 3 years of age, children are beginning to
understand that they share cultural common ground with other
members of their group.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.2044-835x.2012.02080.x},
Key = {fds351678}
}
@article{fds320794,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Keupp, S and Hare, B and Vaish, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Direct and indirect reputation formation in nonhuman great
apes (Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Gorilla gorilla, Pongo
pygmaeus) and human children (Homo sapiens).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {127},
Number = {1},
Pages = {63-75},
Year = {2013},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028929},
Abstract = {Humans make decisions about when and with whom to cooperate
based on their reputations. People either learn about others
by direct interaction or by observing third-party
interactions or gossip. An important question is whether
other animal species, especially our closest living
relatives, the nonhuman great apes, also form reputations of
others. In Study 1, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and
2.5-year-old human children experienced a nice experimenter
who tried to give food/toys to the subject and a mean
experimenter who interrupted the food/toy giving. In studies
2 and 3, nonhuman great apes and human children could only
passively observe a similar interaction, in which a nice
experimenter and a mean experimenter interacted with a third
party. Orangutans and 2.5-year-old human children preferred
to approach the nice experimenter rather than the mean one
after having directly experienced their respective
behaviors. Orangutans, chimpanzees, and 2.5-year-old human
children also took into account experimenter actions toward
third parties in forming reputations. These studies show
that the human ability to form direct and indirect
reputation judgment is already present in young children and
shared with at least some of the other great
apes.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0028929},
Key = {fds320794}
}
@article{fds351679,
Author = {Melis, AP and Altrichter, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Allocation of resources to collaborators and free-riders in
3-year-olds.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {114},
Number = {2},
Pages = {364-370},
Year = {2013},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.08.006},
Abstract = {Recent studies have shown that in situations where resources
have been acquired collaboratively, children at around 3
years of age share mostly equally. We investigated
3-year-olds' sharing behavior with a collaborating partner
and a free-riding partner who explicitly expressed her
preference not to collaborate. Children shared more equally
with the collaborating partner than with the free rider.
These results suggest that young children are sensitive to
the contributions made by others to a collaborative effort
(and possibly their reasons for not collaborating) and
distribute resources accordingly.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2012.08.006},
Key = {fds351679}
}
@article{fds351680,
Author = {Schmelz, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees predict that a competitor's preference will
match their own.},
Journal = {Biology letters},
Volume = {9},
Number = {1},
Pages = {20120829},
Year = {2013},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0829},
Abstract = {The ability to predict how another individual will behave is
useful in social competition. Chimpanzees can predict the
behaviour of another based on what they observe her to see,
hear, know and infer. Here we show that chimpanzees act on
the assumption that others have preferences that match their
own. All subjects began with a preference for a box with a
picture of food over one with a picture of nothing, even
though the pictures had no causal relation to the contents.
In a back-and-forth food competition, chimpanzees then
avoided the box with the picture of food when their
competitor had chosen one of the boxes before
them-presumably on the assumption that the competitor shared
their own preference for it and had already chosen it.
Chimpanzees predicted that their competitor's preference
would match their own and adjusted their behavioural
strategies accordingly.},
Doi = {10.1098/rsbl.2012.0829},
Key = {fds351680}
}
@article{fds321687,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Vaish, A},
Title = {Origins of human cooperation and morality},
Journal = {Annual Review of Psychology},
Volume = {64},
Number = {1},
Pages = {231-255},
Publisher = {ANNUAL REVIEWS},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143812},
Abstract = {From an evolutionary perspective, morality is a form of
cooperation. Cooperation requires individuals either to
suppress their own self-interest or to equate it with that
of others. We review recent research on the origins of human
morality, both phylogenetic (research with apes) and
ontogenetic (research with children). For both time frames
we propose a two-step sequence: first a second-personal
morality in which individuals are sympathetic or fair to
particular others, and second an agent-neutral morality in
which individuals follow and enforce group-wide social
norms. Human morality arose evolutionarily as a set of
skills and motives for cooperating with others, and the
ontogeny of these skills and motives unfolds in part
naturally and in part as a result of sociocultural contexts
and interactions. © 2013 by Annual Reviews. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143812},
Key = {fds321687}
}
@article{fds351682,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {A New Look at Children's Prosocial Motivation},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {18},
Number = {1},
Pages = {67-90},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00130.x},
Abstract = {Young children routinely behave prosocially, but what is
their motivation for doing so? Here, we review three studies
which show that young children (1) are intrinsically
motivated rather than motivated by extrinsic rewards; (2)
are more inclined to help those for whom they feel sympathy;
and (3) are not so much motivated to provide help themselves
as to see the person helped (as can be seen in changes of
their sympathetic arousal, as measured by pupil dilation, in
different circumstances). Young children's prosocial
behavior is thus intrinsically motivated by a concern for
others' welfare, which has its evolutionary roots in a
concern for the well-being of those with whom one is
interdependent. © International Society on Infant Studies
(ISIS).},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00130.x},
Key = {fds351682}
}
@article{fds351683,
Author = {Bullinger, AF and Burkart, JM and Melis, AP and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Bonobos, Pan paniscus, chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, and
marmosets, Callithrix jacchus, prefer to feed
alone},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {85},
Number = {1},
Pages = {51-60},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.10.006},
Abstract = {Many primates share food, but the motives behind this food
sharing are mostly not known. We investigated individuals'
preference to feed either alone or together with a tolerant
partner. Subjects (chimpanzees who are highly competitive
around food, bonobos who are more tolerant around food and
common marmosets who are cooperative breeders and share food
actively with some partners) were tested with a door-opening
paradigm. In a 2 × 2 design with the factors 'food' and
'partner', subjects had the opportunity to eat piles of
sharable food, if present, and/or to open the door, thereby
allowing the partner, if present, to join the subject. While
food had a main effect on the subject's behaviour, the
presence of the partner did not. Individuals of all species
opened the door much more often if there was no food
available. These results suggest that regardless of their
differing social organizations, chimpanzees, bonobos and
marmosets do not voluntarily co-feed, but do not mind having
company if there is no food present. © 2012 The Association
for the Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.10.006},
Key = {fds351683}
}
@article{fds351684,
Author = {Gräfenhain, M and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Three-year-olds' understanding of the consequences of joint
commitments.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {8},
Number = {9},
Pages = {e73039},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0073039},
Abstract = {Here we investigate the extent of children's understanding
of the joint commitments inherent in joint activities.
Three-year-old children either made a joint commitment to
assemble a puzzle with a puppet partner, or else the child
and puppet each assembled their own puzzle. Afterwards,
children who had made the joint commitment were more likely
to stop and wait for their partner on their way to fetch
something, more likely to spontaneously help their partner
when needed, and more likely to take over their partner's
role when necessary. There was no clear difference in
children's tendency to tattle on their partner's cheating
behavior or their tendency to distribute rewards equally at
the end. It thus appears that by 3 years of age making a
joint commitment to act together with others is beginning to
engender in children a "we"-intentionality which holds
across at least most of the process of the joint activity
until the shared goal is achieved, and which withstands at
least some of the perturbations to the joint activity
children experience.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0073039},
Key = {fds351684}
}
@article{fds351685,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Can domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use referential
emotional expressions to locate hidden food?},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {16},
Number = {1},
Pages = {137-145},
Year = {2013},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0560-4},
Abstract = {Although many studies have investigated domestic dogs'
(Canis familiaris) use of human communicative cues, little
is known about their use of humans' emotional expressions.
We conducted a study following the general paradigm of
Repacholi in Dev Psychol 34:1017-1025, (1998) and tested
four breeds of dogs in the laboratory and another breed in
the open air. In our study, a human reacted emotionally
(happy, neutral or disgust) to the hidden contents of two
boxes, after which the dog was then allowed to choose one of
the boxes. Dogs tested in the laboratory distinguished
between the most distinct of the expressed emotions
(Happy-Disgust condition) by choosing appropriately, but
performed at chance level when the two emotions were less
distinct (Happy-Neutral condition). The breed tested in the
open air passed both conditions, but this breed's differing
testing setup might have been responsible for their success.
Although without meaningful emotional expressions, when
given a choice, these subjects chose randomly, their
performance did not differ from that in the experimental
conditions. Based on the findings revealed in the
laboratory, we suggest that some domestic dogs recognize
both the directedness and the valence of some human
emotional expressions.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0560-4},
Key = {fds351685}
}
@article{fds351686,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Melis, AP and Tennie, C and Wyman, E and Herrmann,
E},
Title = {Two key steps in the evolution of human cooperation: The
interdependence Hypothesis},
Journal = {Current Anthropology},
Volume = {53},
Number = {6},
Pages = {673-692},
Year = {2012},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/668207},
Abstract = {Modern theories of the evolution of human cooperation focus
mainly on altruism. In contrast, we propose that humans'
species-unique forms of cooperation-as well as their
species-unique forms of cognition, communication, and social
life-all derive from mutualistic collaboration (with social
selection against cheaters). In a first step, humans became
obligate collaborative foragers such that individuals were
interdependent with one another and so had a direct interest
in the well-being of their partners. In this context, they
evolved new skills and motivations for collaboration not
possessed by other great apes (joint intentionality), and
they helped their potential partners (and avoided cheaters).
In a second step, these new collaborative skills and
motivations were scaled up to group life in general, as
modern humans faced competition from other groups. As part
of this new group-mindedness, they created cultural
conventions, norms, and institutions (all characterized by
collective intentionality), with knowledge of a specific set
of these marking individuals as members of a particular
cultural group. Human cognition and sociality thus became
ever more collaborative and altruistic as human individuals
became ever more interdependent. © 2012 by The Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1086/668207},
Key = {fds351686}
}
@article{fds351687,
Author = {Kaiser, I and Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Theft in an ultimatum game: chimpanzees and bonobos are
insensitive to unfairness.},
Journal = {Biology letters},
Volume = {8},
Number = {6},
Pages = {942-945},
Year = {2012},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2012.0519},
Abstract = {Humans, but not chimpanzees, punish unfair offers in
ultimatum games, suggesting that fairness concerns evolved
sometime after the split between the lineages that gave rise
to Homo and Pan. However, nothing is known about fairness
concerns in the other Pan species, bonobos. Furthermore,
apes do not typically offer food to others, but they do
react against theft. We presented a novel game, the
ultimatum theft game, to both of our closest living
relatives. Bonobos and chimpanzee 'proposers' consistently
stole food from the responders' portions, but the responders
did not reject any non-zero offer. These results support the
interpretation that the human sense of fairness is a derived
trait.},
Doi = {10.1098/rsbl.2012.0519},
Key = {fds351687}
}
@article{fds351688,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Why be nice? Better not think about it.},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {16},
Number = {12},
Pages = {580-581},
Year = {2012},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.10.006},
Abstract = {Are people more likely to be cooperative if they must act
quickly or if they have more time to mull it over? The
results of a recent series of studies suggest that peoples'
initial impulse is to cooperate, but that with more time and
reflection they become more selfish.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2012.10.006},
Key = {fds351688}
}
@article{fds351689,
Author = {Schneider, A-C and Melis, AP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How chimpanzees solve collective action problems.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {279},
Number = {1749},
Pages = {4946-4954},
Year = {2012},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2012.1948},
Abstract = {We presented small groups of chimpanzees with two collective
action situations, in which action was necessary for reward
but there was a disincentive for individuals to act owing to
the possibility of free-riding on the efforts of others. We
found that in simpler scenarios (experiment 1) in which
group size was small, there was a positive relationship
between rank and action with more dominant individuals
volunteering to act more often, particularly when the reward
was less dispersed. Social tolerance also seemed to mediate
action whereby higher tolerance levels within a group
resulted in individuals of lower ranks sometimes acting and
appropriating more of the reward. In more complex scenarios,
when group size was larger and cooperation was necessary
(experiment 2), overcoming the problem was more challenging.
There was highly significant variability in the action rates
of different individuals as well as between dyads,
suggesting success was more greatly influenced by the
individual personalities and personal relationships present
in the group.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2012.1948},
Key = {fds351689}
}
@article{fds351690,
Author = {Matthews, D and Behne, T and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Origins of the human pointing gesture: a training
study.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {15},
Number = {6},
Pages = {817-829},
Year = {2012},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01181.x},
Abstract = {Despite its importance in the development of children's
skills of social cognition and communication, very little is
known about the ontogenetic origins of the pointing gesture.
We report a training study in which mothers gave children
one month of extra daily experience with pointing as
compared with a control group who had extra experience with
musical activities. One hundred and two infants of 9, 10, or
11 months of age were seen at the beginning, middle, and end
of this one-month period and tested for declarative pointing
and gaze following. Infants'ability to point with the index
finger at the end of the study was not affected by the
training but was instead predicted by infants' prior ability
to follow the gaze direction of an adult. The frequency with
which infants pointed indexically was also affected by
infant gaze following ability and, in addition, by maternal
pointing frequency in free play, but not by training. In
contrast, infants' ability to monitor their partner's gaze
when pointing, and the frequency with which they did so, was
affected by both training and maternal pointing frequency in
free play. These results suggest that prior social cognitive
advances, rather than adult socialization of pointing per
se, determine the developmental onset of indexical pointing,
but socialization processes such as imitation and adult
shaping subsequently affect both infants' ability to monitor
their interlocutor's gaze while they point and how
frequently infants choose to point.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2012.01181.x},
Key = {fds351690}
}
@article{fds351691,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Schütte, S and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Great apes infer others' goals based on context.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {15},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1037-1053},
Year = {2012},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0528-4},
Abstract = {In previous studies claiming to demonstrate that great apes
understand the goals of others, the apes could potentially
have been using subtle behavioral cues present during the
test to succeed. In the current studies, we ruled out the
use of such cues by making the behavior of the experimenter
identical in the test phase of both the experimental and
control conditions; the only difference was the preceding
"context." In the first study, apes interpreted a human's
ambiguous action as having the underlying goal of opening a
box, or not, based on that human's previous actions with
similar boxes. In the second study, chimpanzees learned that
when a human stood up she was going to go get food for them,
but when a novel, unexpected event happened, they changed
their expectation-presumably based on their understanding
that this new event led the human to change her goal. These
studies suggest that great apes do not need concurrent
behavioral cues to infer others' goals, but can do so from a
variety of different types of cues-even cues displaced in
time.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0528-4},
Key = {fds351691}
}
@article{fds351694,
Author = {Hepach, R and Vaish, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children are intrinsically motivated to see others
helped.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {23},
Number = {9},
Pages = {967-972},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797612440571},
Abstract = {Young children help other people, but it is not clear why.
In the current study, we found that 2-year-old children's
sympathetic arousal, as measured by relative changes in
pupil dilation, is similar when they themselves help a
person and when they see that person being helped by a third
party (and sympathetic arousal in both cases is different
from that when the person is not being helped at all). These
results demonstrate that the intrinsic motivation for young
children's helping behavior does not require that they
perform the behavior themselves and thus "get credit" for
it, but rather requires only that the other person be
helped. Thus, from an early age, humans seem to have genuine
concern for the welfare of others.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797612440571},
Key = {fds351694}
}
@article{fds351695,
Author = {Riedl, K and Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {No third-party punishment in chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {109},
Number = {37},
Pages = {14824-14829},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1203179109},
Abstract = {Punishment can help maintain cooperation by deterring
free-riding and cheating. Of particular importance in
large-scale human societies is third-party punishment in
which individuals punish a transgressor or norm violator
even when they themselves are not affected. Nonhuman
primates and other animals aggress against conspecifics with
some regularity, but it is unclear whether this is ever
aimed at punishing others for noncooperation, and whether
third-party punishment occurs at all. Here we report an
experimental study in which one of humans' closest living
relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), could punish an
individual who stole food. Dominants retaliated when their
own food was stolen, but they did not punish when the food
of third-parties was stolen, even when the victim was
related to them. Third-party punishment as a means of
enforcing cooperation, as humans do, might therefore be a
derived trait in the human lineage.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1203179109},
Key = {fds351695}
}
@article{fds351696,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children enforce social norms selectively depending on
the violator's group affiliation.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {124},
Number = {3},
Pages = {325-333},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2012.06.004},
Abstract = {To become cooperative members of their cultural groups,
developing children must follow their group's social norms.
But young children are not just blind norm followers, they
are also active norm enforcers, for example, protesting and
correcting when someone plays a conventional game the
"wrong" way. In two studies, we asked whether young children
enforce social norms on all people equally, or only on
ingroup members who presumably know and respect the norm. We
looked at both moral norms involving harm and conventional
game norms involving rule violations. Three-year-old
children actively protested violation of moral norms equally
for ingroup and outgroup individuals, but they enforced
conventional game norms for ingroup members only. Despite
their ingroup favoritism, young children nevertheless hold
ingroup members to standards whose violation they tolerate
from outsiders.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2012.06.004},
Key = {fds351696}
}
@article{fds351697,
Author = {Ibbotson, P and Theakston, AL and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Semantics of the transitive construction: prototype effects
and developmental comparisons.},
Journal = {Cognitive science},
Volume = {36},
Number = {7},
Pages = {1268-1288},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01249.x},
Abstract = {This paper investigates whether an abstract linguistic
construction shows the kind of prototype effects
characteristic of non-linguistic categories, in both adults
and young children. Adapting the prototype-plus-distortion
methodology of Franks and Bransford (1971), we found that
whereas adults were lured toward false-positive recognition
of sentences with prototypical transitive semantics, young
children showed no such effect. We examined two main
implications of the results. First, it adds a novel data
point to a growing body of research in cognitive linguistics
and construction grammar that shows abstract linguistic
categories can behave in similar ways to non-linguistic
categories, for example, by showing graded membership of a
category. Thus, the findings lend psychological validity to
the existing cross-linguistic evidence for prototypical
transitive semantics. Second, we discuss a possible
explanation for the fact that prototypical sentences were
processed differently in adults and children, namely, that
children's transitive semantic network is not as
interconnected or cognitively coherent as
adults'.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01249.x},
Key = {fds351697}
}
@article{fds351698,
Author = {Behne, T and Liszkowski, U and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Twelve-month-olds' comprehension and production of
pointing.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {30},
Number = {Pt 3},
Pages = {359-375},
Year = {2012},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-835x.2011.02043.x},
Abstract = {This study explored whether infants aged 12 months already
recognize the communicative function of pointing gestures.
Infants participated in a task requiring them to comprehend
an adult's informative pointing gesture to the location of a
hidden toy. They mostly succeeded in this task, which
required them to infer that the adult was attempting to
direct their attention to a location for a reason - because
she wanted them to know that a toy was hidden there. Many of
the infants also reversed roles and produced appropriate
pointing gestures for the adult in this same game, and
indeed there was a correlation such that comprehenders were
for the most part producers. These findings indicate that by
12 months of age infants are beginning to show a
bidirectional understanding of communicative
pointing.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.2044-835x.2011.02043.x},
Key = {fds351698}
}
@article{fds351699,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young Children Enforce Social Norms},
Journal = {Current Directions in Psychological Science},
Volume = {21},
Number = {4},
Pages = {232-236},
Year = {2012},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963721412448659},
Abstract = {Social norms have played a key role in the evolution of
human cooperation, serving to stabilize prosocial and
egalitarian behavior despite the self-serving motives of
individuals. Young children's behavior mostly conforms to
social norms, as they follow adult behavioral directives and
instructions. But it turns out that even preschool children
also actively enforce social norms on others, often using
generic normative language to do so. This behavior is not
easily explained by individualistic motives; it is more
likely a result of children's growing identification with
their cultural group, which leads to prosocial motives for
preserving its ways of doing things. © The Author(s)
2012.},
Doi = {10.1177/0963721412448659},
Key = {fds351699}
}
@article{fds351700,
Author = {Gampe, A and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Eighteen-month-olds learn novel words through
overhearing},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {32},
Number = {3},
Pages = {385-397},
Year = {2012},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142723711433584},
Abstract = {The prototypical word learning situation in western,
middle-class cultures is dyadic: an adult addresses a child
directly, ideally in a manner sensitive to their current
focus of attention. But young children also seem to learn
many of their words in polyadic situations through
overhearing. Extending the previous work of Akhtar and
colleagues, in the current two studies we gave 18-month-old
infants opportunities to acquire novel words through
overhearing in situations that were a bit more complex: they
did not socially interact with the adult who used the new
word before the word learning situation began, and the way
the adult used the new word was less transparent in that it
was neither a naming nor a directive speech act. In both
studies, infants learned words equally well (and above
chance) whether they were directly addressed or had to
eavesdrop on two adults. Almost from the beginning, young
children employ diverse learning strategies for acquiring
new words. © 2011 The Author(s).},
Doi = {10.1177/0142723711433584},
Key = {fds351700}
}
@article{fds351701,
Author = {Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Three-year-olds understand appearance and reality--just not
about the same object at the same time.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {48},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1124-1132},
Year = {2012},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025915},
Abstract = {Young children struggle in the classic tests of appearance
versus reality. In the current Study 1, 3-year-olds had to
determine which of 2 objects (a deceptive or a nondeceptive
one) an adult requested when asking for the "real X" versus
"the one that looks like X." In Study 2, children of the
same age had to indicate what a single deceptive object
(e.g., a chocolate-eraser) looked like and what it really
was by selecting one of two items that represented this
object's appearance (a chocolate bar) or identity (a regular
eraser). Children were mainly successful in Study 1 but not
in Study 2. The findings are discussed with a focus on young
children's difficulty with "confronting" perspectives, which
may be involved in their struggles with a number of classic
theory of mind tasks.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0025915},
Key = {fds351701}
}
@article{fds351702,
Author = {Grassmann, S and Kaminski, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How two word-trained dogs integrate pointing and
naming.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {15},
Number = {4},
Pages = {657-665},
Year = {2012},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0494-x},
Abstract = {Two word-trained dogs were presented with acts of reference
in which a human pointed, named objects, or simultaneously
did both. The question was whether these dogs would assume
co-reference of pointing and naming and thus pick the
pointed-to object. Results show that the dogs did indeed
assume co-reference of pointing and naming in order to
determine the reference of a spoken word, but they did so
only when pointing was not in conflict with their previous
word knowledge. When pointing and a spoken word conflicted,
the dogs preferentially fetched the object by name. This is
not surprising since they are trained to fetch objects by
name. However, interestingly, in these conflict conditions,
the dogs fetched the named objects only after they had
initially approached the pointed-to object. We suggest that
this shows that the word-trained dogs interpret pointing as
a spatial directive, which they integrate into the fetching
game, presumably assuming that pointing is relevant to
finding the requested object.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-012-0494-x},
Key = {fds351702}
}
@article{fds351703,
Author = {Haun, DBM and Rekers, Y and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Majority-biased transmission in chimpanzees and human
children, but not orangutans.},
Journal = {Current biology : CB},
Volume = {22},
Number = {8},
Pages = {727-731},
Year = {2012},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.006},
Abstract = {Cultural transmission is a key component of human evolution.
Two of humans' closest living relatives, chimpanzees and
orangutans, have also been argued to transmit behavioral
traditions across generations culturally [1-3], but how much
the process might resemble the human process is still in
large part unknown. One key phenomenon of human cultural
transmission is majority-biased transmission: the increased
likelihood for learners to end up not with the most frequent
behavior but rather with the behavior demonstrated by most
individuals. Here we show that chimpanzees and human
children as young as 2 years of age, but not orangutans, are
more likely to copy an action performed by three
individuals, once each, than an action performed by one
individual three times. The tendency to acquire the
behaviors of the majority has been posited as key to the
transmission of relatively safe, reliable, and productive
behavioral strategies [4-7] but has not previously been
demonstrated in primates.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.006},
Key = {fds351703}
}
@article{fds351704,
Author = {Fletcher, GE and Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Differences in cognitive processes underlying the
collaborative activities of children and
chimpanzees},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {27},
Number = {2},
Pages = {136-153},
Year = {2012},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.02.003},
Abstract = {We compared the performance of 3- and 5-year-old children
with that of chimpanzees in two tasks requiring
collaboration via complementary roles. In both tasks,
children and chimpanzees were able to coordinate two
complementary roles with peers and solve the problem
cooperatively. This is the first experimental demonstration
of the coordination of complementary roles in chimpanzees.
In the second task, neither species was skillful at waiting
for a partner to be positioned appropriately before
beginning (although children did hesitate significantly
longer when the partner was absent). The main difference
between species in both tasks was in children's, but not
chimpanzees', ability to profit from experience as a
collaborator in one role when later reversing roles. This
difference suggests that as they participate in a
collaboration, young children integrate both roles into a
single " birds-eye-view" representational format in a way
that chimpanzees do not. © 2012 Elsevier
Inc.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2012.02.003},
Key = {fds351704}
}
@article{fds351705,
Author = {Matthews, D and Butcher, J and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Two- and four-year-olds learn to adapt referring expressions
to context: effects of distracters and feedback on
referential communication.},
Journal = {Topics in cognitive science},
Volume = {4},
Number = {2},
Pages = {184-210},
Year = {2012},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01181.x},
Abstract = {Children often refer to things ambiguously but learn not to
from responding to clarification requests. We review and
explore this learning process here. In Study 1, eighty-four
2- and 4-year-olds were tested for their ability to request
stickers from either (a) a small array with one dissimilar
distracter or (b) a large array containing similar
distracters. When children made ambiguous requests, they
received either general feedback or specific questions about
which of two options they wanted. With training, children
learned to produce more complex object descriptions and did
so faster in the specific feedback condition. They also
tended to provide more information when requesting stickers
from large arrays. In Study 2, we varied only distracter
similarity during training and then varied array size in a
generalization test. Children found it harder to learn in
this case. In the generalization test, 4-year-olds were more
likely to provide information (a) when it was needed because
distracters were similar to the target and (b) when the
array size was greater (regardless of need for information).
We discuss how clear cues to potential ambiguity are needed
for children to learn to tailor their referring expression
to context and how several cues of heuristic value (e.g.,
more distracters > say more) can promote the efficiency of
communication while language is developing. Finally, we
consider whether it would be worthwhile drawing on the human
learning process when developing algorithms for the
production of referring expressions.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01181.x},
Key = {fds351705}
}
@article{fds351708,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Schulz, L and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How dogs know when communication is intended for
them.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {15},
Number = {2},
Pages = {222-232},
Year = {2012},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01120.x},
Abstract = {Domestic dogs comprehend human gestural communication in a
way that other animal species do not. But little is known
about the specific cues they use to determine when human
communication is intended for them. In a series of four
studies, we confronted both adult dogs and young dog puppies
with object choice tasks in which a human indicated one of
two opaque cups by either pointing to it or gazing at it. We
varied whether the communicator made eye contact with the
dog in association with the gesture (or whether her back was
turned or her eyes were directed at another recipient) and
whether the communicator called the dog's name (or the name
of another recipient). Results demonstrated the importance
of eye contact in human-dog communication, and, to a lesser
extent, the calling of the dog's name--with no difference
between adult dogs and young puppies--which are precisely
the communicative cues used by human infants for identifying
communicative intent. Unlike human children, however, dogs
did not seem to comprehend the human's communicative gesture
when it was directed to another human, perhaps because dogs
view all human communicative acts as directives for the
recipient.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01120.x},
Key = {fds351708}
}
@article{fds351709,
Author = {Theakston, AL and Maslen, R and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The acquisition of the active transitive construction in
English: A detailed case study},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {23},
Number = {1},
Pages = {91-128},
Year = {2012},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2012-0004},
Abstract = {In this study, we test a number of predictions concerning
children's knowledge of the transitive Subject-Verb-Object
(SVO) construction between two and three years on one child
(Thomas) for whom we have densely collected data. The data
show that the earliest SVO utterances reflect earlier use of
those same verbs, and that verbs acquired before 2;7 show an
earlier move towards adultlike levels of use in the SVO
construction and in object argument complexity than later
acquired verbs. There is not a close relation with the input
in the types of subject and object referents used, nor a
close adherence to Preferred Argument Structure (PAS) before
2;7, but both early and late acquired verbs show a
simultaneous move towards PAS patterns in selection of
referent type at 2;9. The event semantics underpinning early
transitive utterances do not straightforwardly fit prototype
(high or inalienable) notions of transitivity, but rather
may reflect sensitivity to animacy and intentionality in a
way that mirrors the input. We conclude that children's
knowledge of the transitive construction continues to
undergo significant development between 2;0 and 3;0,
reflecting the gradual abstraction and integration of the
SVO and VO constructions, verb semantics, discourse
pragmatics, and the interactions between these factors.
These factors are considered in the context of a prototype
for the transitive construction. © Walter de
Gruyter.},
Doi = {10.1515/cog-2012-0004},
Key = {fds351709}
}
@article{fds351711,
Author = {Nitzschner, M and Melis, AP and Kaminski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Dogs (Canis familiaris) evaluate humans on the basis of
direct experiences only.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {7},
Number = {10},
Pages = {e46880},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046880},
Abstract = {Reputation formation is a key component in the social
interactions of many animal species. An evaluation of
reputation is drawn from two principal sources: direct
experience of an individual and indirect experience from
observing that individual interacting with a third party. In
the current study we investigated whether dogs use direct
and/or indirect experience to choose between two human
interactants. In the first experiment, subjects had direct
interaction either with a "nice" human (who played with,
talked to and stroked the dog) or with an "ignoring"
experimenter who ignored the dog completely. Results showed
that the dogs stayed longer close to the "nice" human. In a
second experiment the dogs observed a "nice" or "ignoring"
human interacting with another dog. This indirect
experience, however, did not lead to a preference between
the two humans. These results suggest that the dogs in our
study evaluated humans solely on the basis of direct
experience.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0046880},
Key = {fds351711}
}
@article{fds351712,
Author = {Bannard, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Can we dissociate contingency learning from social learning
in word acquisition by 24-month-olds?},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {7},
Number = {11},
Pages = {e49881},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049881},
Abstract = {We compared 24-month-old children's learning when their
exposure to words came either in an interactive (coupled)
context or in a nonsocial (decoupled) context. We measured
the children's learning with two different methods: one in
which they were asked to point to the referent for the
experimenter, and the other a preferential looking task in
which they were encouraged to look to the referent. In the
pointing test, children chose the correct referents for
words encountered in the coupled condition but not in the
decoupled condition. In the looking time test, however, they
looked to the targets regardless of condition. We explore
the explanations for this and propose that the different
response measures are reflecting two different kinds of
learning.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0049881},
Key = {fds351712}
}
@article{fds351713,
Author = {Rossano, F and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {One-year-old infants follow others' voice
direction.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {23},
Number = {11},
Pages = {1298-1302},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797612450032},
Abstract = {We investigated 1-year-old infants' ability to infer an
adult's focus of attention solely on the basis of her voice
direction. In Studies 1 and 2, 12- and 16-month-olds watched
an adult go behind a barrier and then heard her verbally
express excitement about a toy hidden in one of two boxes at
either end of the barrier. Even though they could not see
the adult, infants of both ages followed her voice direction
to the box containing the toy. Study 2 showed that infants
could do this even when the adult was positioned closer to
the incorrect box while she vocalized toward the correct one
(and thus ruled out the possibility that infants were merely
approaching the source of the sound). In Study 3, using the
same methods as in Study 2, we found that chimpanzees
performed the task at chance level. Our results show that
infants can determine the focus of another person's
attention through auditory information alone-a useful skill
for establishing joint attention.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797612450032},
Key = {fds351713}
}
@article{fds351714,
Author = {Engelmann, JM and Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Five-year olds, but not chimpanzees, attempt to manage their
reputations.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {7},
Number = {10},
Pages = {e48433},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048433},
Abstract = {Virtually all theories of the evolution of cooperation
require that cooperators find ways to interact with one
another selectively, to the exclusion of cheaters. This
means that individuals must make reputational judgments
about others as cooperators, based on either direct or
indirect evidence. Humans, and possibly other species, add
another component to the process: they know that they are
being judged by others, and so they adjust their behavior in
order to affect those judgments - so-called impression
management. Here, we show for the first time that already
preschool children engage in such behavior. In an
experimental study, 5-year-old human children share more and
steal less when they are being watched by a peer than when
they are alone. In contrast, chimpanzees behave the same
whether they are being watched by a groupmate or not. This
species difference suggests that humans' concern for their
own self-reputation, and their tendency to manage the
impression they are making on others, may be unique to
humans among primates.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0048433},
Key = {fds351714}
}
@article{fds351715,
Author = {Tennie, C and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Untrained chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) fail
to imitate novel actions.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {7},
Number = {8},
Pages = {e41548},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0041548},
Abstract = {<h4>Background</h4>Social learning research in apes has
focused on social learning in the technical (problem
solving) domain - an approach that confounds action and
physical information. Successful subjects in such studies
may have been able to perform target actions not as a result
of imitation learning but because they had learnt some
technical aspect, for example, copying the movements of an
apparatus (i.e., different forms of emulation
learning).<h4>Methods</h4>Here we present data on action
copying by non-enculturated and untrained chimpanzees when
physical information is removed from demonstrations. To
date, only one such study (on gesture copying in a begging
context) has been conducted--with negative results. Here we
have improved this methodology and have also added
non-begging test situations (a possible confound of the
earlier study). Both familiar and novel actions were used as
targets. Prior to testing, a trained conspecific
demonstrator was rewarded for performing target actions in
view of observers. All but one of the tested chimpanzees
already failed to copy familiar actions. When retested with
a novel target action, also the previously successful
subject failed to copy--and he did so across several
contexts.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Chimpanzees do not seem to copy
novel actions, and only some ever copy familiar ones. Due to
our having tested only non-enculturated and untrained
chimpanzees, the performance of our test subjects speak more
than most other studies of the general (dis-)ability of
chimpanzees to copy actions, and especially novel
actions.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0041548},
Key = {fds351715}
}
@article{fds351716,
Author = {Kirchhofer, KC and Zimmermann, F and Kaminski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Dogs (Canis familiaris), but not chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes), understand imperative pointing.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {7},
Number = {2},
Pages = {e30913},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0030913},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees routinely follow the gaze of humans to outside
targets. However, in most studies using object choice they
fail to use communicative gestures (e.g. pointing) to find
hidden food. Chimpanzees' failure to do this may be due to
several difficulties with this paradigm. They may, for
example, misinterpret the gesture as referring to the opaque
cup instead of the hidden food. Or perhaps they do not
understand informative communicative intentions. In
contrast, dogs seem to be skilful in using human
communicative cues in the context of finding food, but as of
yet there is not much data showing whether they also use
pointing in the context of finding non-food objects. Here we
directly compare chimpanzees' (N = 20) and dogs' (N = 32)
skills in using a communicative gesture directed at a
visible object out of reach of the human but within reach of
the subject. Pairs of objects were placed in view of and
behind the subjects. The task was to retrieve the object the
experimenter wanted. To indicate which one she desired, the
experimenter pointed imperatively to it and directly
rewarded the subject for handing over the correct one. While
dogs performed well on this task, chimpanzees failed to
identify the referent. Implications for great apes' and
dogs' understanding of human communicative intentions are
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0030913},
Key = {fds351716}
}
@article{fds351717,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Hamann, K},
Title = {Collaboration in young children.},
Journal = {Quarterly journal of experimental psychology
(2006)},
Volume = {65},
Number = {1},
Pages = {1-12},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2011.608853},
Abstract = {Humans accomplish much of what they do in collaboration with
others. In ontogeny, children's earliest abilities to
collaborate develop in two basic steps. First, 1- and
2-year-olds learn to form with others joint goals and joint
attention--which include an understanding of the individual
roles and perspectives involved. Second, as they approach
their third birthdays, children's collaborative interactions
with others take on a more normative dimension involving
obligations to the partner. In addition, their cognitive
abilities to conceptualize simultaneously both their own
role and perspective along with those of the other develop
considerably as well. This form of collaborative interaction
is underlain by species-unique skills and motivations for
shared intentionality that make possible, ultimately, such
things as complex cultural institutions.},
Doi = {10.1080/17470218.2011.608853},
Key = {fds351717}
}
@article{fds351718,
Author = {Warneken, F and Gräfenhain, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Collaborative partner or social tool? New evidence for young
children's understanding of joint intentions in
collaborative activities.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {15},
Number = {1},
Pages = {54-61},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01107.x},
Abstract = {Some children's social activities are structured by joint
goals. In previous research, the criterion used to determine
this was relatively weak: if the partner stopped
interacting, did the child attempt to re-engage her? But
re-engagement attempts could easily result from the child
simply realizing that she needs the partner to reach her own
goal in the activity (social tool explanation). In two
experiments, 21- and 27-month-old children interacted with
an adult in games in which they either did or did not
physically need the partner to reach a concrete goal.
Moreover, when the partner stopped interacting, she did so
because she was either unwilling to continue (breaking off
from the joint goal) or unable to continue (presumably still
maintaining the joint goal). Children of both age groups
encouraged the recalcitrant partner equally often whether
she was or was not physically needed for goal attainment. In
addition, they did so more often when the partner was unable
to continue than when she was unwilling to continue. These
findings suggest that young children do not just view their
collaborative partners as mindless social tools, but rather
as intentional, cooperative agents with whom they must
coordinate intentional states.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01107.x},
Key = {fds351718}
}
@article{fds351719,
Author = {Hamann, K and Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's developing commitments to joint
goals.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {83},
Number = {1},
Pages = {137-145},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01695.x},
Abstract = {This study investigated young children's commitment to a
joint goal by assessing whether peers in collaborative
activities continue to collaborate until all received their
rewards. Forty-eight 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children worked
on an apparatus dyadically. One child got access to her
reward early. For the partner to benefit as well, this child
had to continue to collaborate even though there was no
further reward available to her. The study found that
3.5-year-olds, but not 2.5-year-olds, eagerly assisted their
unlucky partner. They did this less readily in a
noncollaborative control condition. A second study confirmed
that 2.5-year-old children understood the task structure.
These results suggest that children begin to appreciate the
normative dimensions of collaborative activities during the
3rd year of life.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01695.x},
Key = {fds351719}
}
@article{fds351720,
Author = {Grosse, G and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-old children differentiate test questions from
genuine questions.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {39},
Number = {1},
Pages = {192-204},
Year = {2012},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000910000760},
Abstract = {Children are frequently confronted with so-called 'test
questions'. While genuine questions are requests for missing
information, test questions ask for information obviously
already known to the questioner. In this study we explored
whether two-year-old children respond differentially to one
and the same question used as either a genuine question or
as a test question based on the situation (playful game
versus serious task) and attitude (playful ostensive cues
versus not). Results indicated that children responded to
questions differently on the basis of the situation but not
the expressed attitude of the questioner. Two-year-old
children thus understand something of the very special
communicative intentions behind test questions.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000910000760},
Key = {fds351720}
}
@article{fds351721,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Methodological challenges in the study of primate
cognition},
Journal = {Science},
Volume = {334},
Number = {6060},
Pages = {1227-1228},
Year = {2011},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1213443},
Abstract = {Laboratory studies of primate cognition face the problem
that captive populations of a species are not always
comparable, and generalizations to natural populations are
never certain. Studies of primate cognition in the field
face the problem that replications are expensive and
difficult, and again different populations are not always
comparable. To help remedy these problems, we recommend the
creation of data banks where primary data and videotapes may
be deposited (perhaps as a requirement of publication) to
facilitate cross-examination, replication, and, eventually,
the pooling of data across investigators.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1213443},
Key = {fds351721}
}
@article{fds351722,
Author = {Bullinger, AF and Wyman, E and Melis, AP and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Coordination of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in a Stag Hunt
Game},
Journal = {International Journal of Primatology},
Volume = {32},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1296-1310},
Year = {2011},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10764-011-9546-3},
Abstract = {Group-living animals frequently face situations in which
they must coordinate individual and sometimes conflicting
goals. We assessed chimpanzees' ability to coordinate in a
Stag Hunt game. Dyads were confronted with a situation in
which each individual was already foraging on a low-value
food (hare) when a high-value food (stag) appeared that
required collaboration for retrieval, with a solo attempt to
get the stag resulting in a loss of both options. In one
condition visibility between partners was open whereas in
the other it was blocked by a barrier. Regardless of
condition, dyads almost always (91%) coordinated to choose
the higher valued collaborative option. Intentional
communication or monitoring of the partner's behavior before
decision making-characteristic of much human
coordination-were limited. Instead, all dyads adopted a
leader-follower strategy in which one partner took the risk
of going first, presumably predicting that this would induce
the other to join in (sometimes communicating if she was
slow to do so). These results show that humans' closest
primate relatives do not use complex communication to
coordinate but most often use a less cognitively complex
strategy that achieves the same end. © 2011 Springer
Science+Business Media, LLC.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10764-011-9546-3},
Key = {fds351722}
}
@article{fds320795,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Hare, B and Cissewski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {A comparison of temperament in nonhuman apes and human
infants.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {14},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1393-1405},
Year = {2011},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01082.x},
Abstract = {The adaptive behavior of primates, including humans, is
often mediated by temperament. Human behavior likely differs
from that of other primates in part due to temperament. In
the current study we compared the reaction of bonobos,
chimpanzees, orangutans, and 2.5-year-old human infants to
novel objects and people - as a measure of their
shyness-boldness, a key temperamental trait. Human children
at the age of 2.5 years avoided novelty of all kinds far
more than the other ape species. This response was most
similar to that seen in bonobos and least like that of
chimpanzees and orangutans. This comparison represents a
first step in characterizing the temperamental profiles of
species in the hominoid clade, and these findings are
consistent with the hypothesis that human temperament has
evolved since our lineage diverged from the other apes in
ways that likely have broad effects on behavior. These
findings also provide new insights into how species
differences in ecology may shape differences in
temperament.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01082.x},
Key = {fds320795}
}
@article{fds351723,
Author = {Bullinger, AF and Melis, AP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, prefer individual over
collaborative strategies towards goals},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {82},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1135-1141},
Year = {2011},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.08.008},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees engage in a number of group activities, but it
is still unclear to what extent they prefer mutualistic
collaborative strategies over individual strategies to
achieve their goals. In one experiment, we gave chimpanzees
the choice between pulling a platform to within reach either
individually or collaboratively with a tolerant partner,
both strategies having equivalent payoffs. Overall,
chimpanzees preferred the individual option, and this
preference was independent of the type of reward for which
they were working (food or tool). In a second experiment,
chimpanzees switched to the collaboration option as soon as
the payoff was increased for this option. These results
suggest that chimpanzees prefer to work alone in
foraging-like situations and choose collaboration only if it
maximizes their reward. These results thus make a strong
case for the hypothesis that differences between humans' and
chimpanzees' collaboration are to a great extent due to
motivational differences. © 2011 The Association for the
Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.08.008},
Key = {fds351723}
}
@article{fds351724,
Author = {Dittmar, M and Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Children aged 2 ; 1 use transitive syntax to make a
semantic-role interpretation in a pointing
task.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {38},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1109-1123},
Year = {2011},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000910000747},
Abstract = {The current study used a forced choice pointing paradigm to
examine whether English children aged 2 ; 1 can use abstract
knowledge of the relationship between word order position
and semantic roles to make an active behavioural decision
when interpreting active transitive sentences with novel
verbs, when the actions are identical in the target and foil
video clips. The children pointed significantly above chance
with novel verbs but only if the final trial was excluded.
With familiar verbs the children pointed consistently above
chance. Children aged 2 ; 7 did not show these tiring
effects and their performance in the familiar and novel verb
conditions was always equivalent.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000910000747},
Key = {fds351724}
}
@article{fds351725,
Author = {Haun, DBM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Conformity to peer pressure in preschool
children.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {82},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1759-1767},
Year = {2011},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01666.x},
Abstract = {Both adults and adolescents often conform their behavior and
opinions to peer groups, even when they themselves know
better. The current study investigated this phenomenon in 24
groups of 4 children between 4;2 and 4;9 years of age.
Children often made their judgments conform to those of 3
peers, who had made obviously erroneous but unanimous public
judgments right before them. A follow-up study with 18
groups of 4 children between 4;0 and 4;6 years of age
revealed that children did not change their "real" judgment
of the situation, but only their public expression of it.
Preschool children are subject to peer pressure, indicating
sensitivity to peers as a primary social reference group
already during the preschool years.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01666.x},
Key = {fds351725}
}
@article{fds351726,
Author = {Rossano, F and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of violations of property
rights.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {121},
Number = {2},
Pages = {219-227},
Year = {2011},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.007},
Abstract = {The present work investigated young children's normative
understanding of property rights using a novel methodology.
Two- and 3-year-old children participated in situations in
which an actor (1) took possession of an object for himself,
and (2) attempted to throw it away. What varied was who
owned the object: the actor himself, the child subject, or a
third party. We found that while both 2- and 3-year-old
children protested frequently when their own object was
involved, only 3-year-old children protested more when a
third party's object was involved than when the actor was
acting on his own object. This suggests that at the latest
around 3 years of age young children begin to understand the
normative dimensions of property rights.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2011.06.007},
Key = {fds351726}
}
@article{fds351727,
Author = {Rekers, Y and Haun, DBM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children, but not chimpanzees, prefer to
collaborate.},
Journal = {Current biology : CB},
Volume = {21},
Number = {20},
Pages = {1756-1758},
Year = {2011},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.066},
Abstract = {Human societies are built on collaborative activities.
Already from early childhood, human children are skillful
and proficient collaborators. They recognize when they need
help in solving a problem and actively recruit collaborators
[1, 2]. The societies of other primates are also to some
degree cooperative. Chimpanzees, for example, engage in a
variety of cooperative activities such as border patrols,
group hunting, and intra- and intergroup coalitionary
behavior [3-5]. Recent studies have shown that chimpanzees
possess many of the cognitive prerequisites necessary for
human-like collaboration. Chimpanzees have been shown to
recognize when they need help in solving a problem and to
actively recruit good over bad collaborators [6, 7].
However, cognitive abilities might not be all that differs
between chimpanzees and humans when it comes to cooperation.
Another factor might be the motivation to engage in a
cooperative activity. Here, we hypothesized that a key
difference between human and chimpanzee collaboration-and so
potentially a key mechanism in the evolution of human
cooperation-is a simple preference for collaborating (versus
acting alone) to obtain food. Our results supported this
hypothesis, finding that whereas children strongly prefer to
work together with another to obtain food, chimpanzees show
no such preference.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2011.08.066},
Key = {fds351727}
}
@article{fds351728,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Neumann, M and Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Dogs, Canis familiaris, communicate with humans to request
but not to inform},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {82},
Number = {4},
Pages = {651-658},
Year = {2011},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.06.015},
Abstract = {Dogs are especially skilful at comprehending human
communicative signals. This raises the question of whether
they are also able to produce such signals flexibly,
specifically, whether they helpfully produce indicative
('showing') behaviours to inform an ignorant human. In
experiment 1, dogs indicated the location of an object more
frequently when it was something they wanted themselves than
when it was something the human wanted. There was some
suggestion that this might be different when the human was
their owner. So in experiment 2 we investigated whether dogs
could understand when the owner needed helpful information
to find a particular object (out of two) that they needed.
They did not. Our findings, therefore, do not support the
hypothesis that dogs communicate with humans to inform them
of things they do not know. © 2011 The Association for the
Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.06.015},
Key = {fds351728}
}
@article{fds351729,
Author = {Pettersson, H and Kaminski, J and Herrmann, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Understanding of human communicative motives in domestic
dogs},
Journal = {Applied Animal Behaviour Science},
Volume = {133},
Number = {3-4},
Pages = {235-245},
Year = {2011},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2011.05.008},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees find it easier to locate food when a human
prohibits them from going to a certain location than when
she indicates that location helpfully. Human children, in
contrast, use the cooperative gesture more readily. The
question here was whether domestic dogs are more like
chimpanzees, in this regard, or more like human children. In
our first study we presented 40 dogs with two communicative
contexts. In the cooperative context the experimenter
informed the subject where food was hidden by pointing
helpfully (with a cooperative tone of voice). In the
competitive context the experimenter extended her arm
towards the correct location in a prohibitive manner, palm
of hand out (uttering a forbidding command in a prohibitive
tone of voice). Dogs were successful in the cooperative
condition (P=0.005) but chose randomly in the competitive
condition (P=0.221). The second study independently varied
the two characteristics of the communicative gesture (the
gesture itself and the tone of voice). In addition to
replicating dogs' better performance with the cooperative
gestures, this study suggests that tone of voice and context
had more effect than type of gesture. In the context of food
acquisition, domestic dogs, like human children, seem more
prepared to use human gestures when they are given
cooperatively. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.applanim.2011.05.008},
Key = {fds351729}
}
@article{fds351730,
Author = {Melis, AP and Schneider, AC and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, share food in the same way
after collaborative and individual food acquisition},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {82},
Number = {3},
Pages = {485-493},
Year = {2011},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.05.024},
Abstract = {We investigated the hypothesis that patterns of chimpanzee
food sharing are influenced by whether individuals
contributed to its acquisition collaboratively. In two
experiments we exposed pairs of captive chimpanzees to food
acquisition/sharing situations in which we manipulated (1)
whether or not the two individuals had worked together
collaboratively to retrieve the food and (2) the proximity
of the individuals to the food at the moment of retrieval.
The first experiment resembled a scramble competition
scenario, with nonmonopolizable food. Proximity of
individuals to the food when it arrived was the major
variable affecting amount obtained by subordinates. Whether
or not the food was obtained via collaboration had no
effect. The second experiment resembled a contest
competition scenario, as the food was a single large piece
of fruit that could be more readily monopolized. In this
scenario, dominants obtained more food than subordinates,
the amount of food obtained by 'noncaptors' was affected by
their proximity to the food when it arrived, and again
previous collaboration had no effect. These results suggest
that in many food acquisition situations first-arriver and
first-possessor chimpanzees, as well as dominants in
general, have a significant advantage in food acquisition,
but being a collaborator brings no extra benefits. © 2011
The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.05.024},
Key = {fds351730}
}
@article{fds351731,
Author = {Liebal, K and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of markedness in non-verbal
communication.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {38},
Number = {4},
Pages = {888-903},
Year = {2011},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000910000383},
Abstract = {Speakers often anticipate how recipients will interpret
their utterances. If they wish some other, less obvious
interpretation, they may 'mark' their utterance (e.g. with
special intonations or facial expressions). We investigated
whether two- and three-year-olds recognize when adults mark
a non-verbal communicative act--in this case a pointing
gesture--as special, and so search for a not-so-obvious
referent. We set up the context of cleaning up and then
pointed to an object. Three-year-olds inferred that the
adult intended the pointing gesture to indicate that object,
and so cleaned it up. However, when the adult marked her
pointing gesture (with exaggerated facial expression) they
took the object's hidden contents or a hidden aspect of it
as the intended referent. Two-year-olds' appreciation of
such marking was less clear-cut. These results demonstrate
that markedness is not just a linguistic phenomenon, but
rather something concerning the pragmatics of intentional
communication more generally.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000910000383},
Key = {fds351731}
}
@article{fds351732,
Author = {Salomo, D and Graf, E and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The role of perceptual availability and discourse context in
young children's question answering.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {38},
Number = {4},
Pages = {918-931},
Year = {2011},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000910000395},
Abstract = {Three- and four-year-old children were asked predicate-focus
questions ('What's X doing?') about a scene in which an
agent performed an action on a patient. We varied: (i)
whether (or not) the preceding discourse context, which
established the patient as given information, was available
for the questioner; and (ii) whether (or not) the patient
was perceptually available to the questioner when she asked
the question. The main finding in our study differs from
those of previous studies since it suggests that children
are sensitive to the perceptual context at an earlier age
than they are to previous discourse context if they need to
take the questioner's perspective into account. Our finding
indicates that, while children are in principle sensitive to
both factors, young children rely on perceptual availability
when a conflict arises.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000910000395},
Key = {fds351732}
}
@article{fds351733,
Author = {Vaish, A and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's responses to guilt displays.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {47},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1248-1262},
Year = {2011},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0024462},
Abstract = {Displaying guilt after a transgression serves to appease the
victim and other group members, restore interpersonal
relationships, and indicate the transgressors' awareness of
and desire to conform to the group's norms. We investigated
whether and when young children are sensitive to these
functions of guilt displays. In Study 1, after 4- and
5-year-old children watched videos of transgressors either
displaying guilt (without explicitly apologizing) or not
displaying guilt, 5-year-olds appropriately inferred that
the victim would be madder at the unremorseful transgressor
and would prefer the remorseful transgressor. They also said
that they would prefer to interact with the remorseful
transgressor, judged the unremorseful transgressor to be
meaner, and, in a distribution of resources task, gave more
resources to the remorseful transgressor. The 4-year-olds
did not draw any of these inferences and distributed the
resources equally. However, Study 2 showed that 4-year-olds
were able to draw appropriate inferences about transgressors
who explicitly apologized versus those who did not
apologize. Thus, 4-year-olds seem to know the appeasement
functions that explicit apologies serve but only when
children have reached the age of 5 years do they seem to
grasp the emotions that apologies stand for, namely, guilt
and remorse, and the appeasement functions that displaying
these emotions serve.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0024462},
Key = {fds351733}
}
@article{fds351734,
Author = {Mersmann, D and Tomasello, M and Call, J and Kaminski, J and Taborsky,
M},
Title = {Simple Mechanisms Can Explain Social Learning in Domestic
Dogs (Canis familiaris)},
Journal = {Ethology},
Volume = {117},
Number = {8},
Pages = {675-690},
Year = {2011},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2011.01919.x},
Abstract = {Recent studies have suggested that domestic dogs (Canis
familiaris) engage in highly complex forms of social
learning. Here, we critically assess the potential
mechanisms underlying social learning in dogs using two
problem-solving tasks. In a classical detour task, the test
dogs benefited from observing a demonstrator walking around
a fence to obtain a reward. However, even inexperienced dogs
did not show a preference for passing the fence at the same
end as the demonstrator. Furthermore, dogs did not need to
observe a complete demonstration by a human demonstrator to
pass the task. Instead, they were just as successful in
solving the problem after seeing a partial demonstration by
an object passing by at the end of the fence. In contrast to
earlier findings, our results suggest that stimulus
enhancement (or affordance learning) might be a powerful
social learning mechanism used by dogs to solve such detour
problems. In the second task, we examined whether naïve
dogs copy actions to solve an instrumental problem. After
controlling for stimulus enhancement and other forms of
social influence (e.g. social facilitation and observational
conditioning), we found that dogs' problem solving was not
influenced by witnessing a skilful demonstrator (either an
unknown human, a conspecific or the dog's owner). Together,
these results add to evidence suggesting that social
learning may often be explained by relatively simple (but
powerful) mechanisms. © 2011 Blackwell Verlag
GmbH.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1439-0310.2011.01919.x},
Key = {fds351734}
}
@article{fds351735,
Author = {Callaghan, T and Moll, H and Rakoczy, H and Warneken, F and Liszkowski,
U and Behne, T and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Early social cognition in three cultural
contexts.},
Journal = {Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development},
Volume = {76},
Number = {2},
Pages = {vii-142},
Year = {2011},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2011.00603.x},
Abstract = {The influence of culture on cognitive development is well
established for school age and older children. But almost
nothing is known about how different parenting and
socialization practices in different cultures affect
infants' and young children's earliest emerging cognitive
and social-cognitive skills. In the current monograph, we
report a series of eight studies in which we systematically
assessed the social-cognitive skills of 1- to 3-year-old
children in three diverse cultural settings. One group of
children was from a Western, middle-class cultural setting
in rural Canada and the other two groups were from
traditional, small-scale cultural settings in rural Peru and
India.In a first group of studies, we assessed 1-year-old
children's most basic social-cognitive skills for
understanding the intentions and attention of others:
imitation, helping, gaze following, and communicative
pointing.Children's performance in these tasks was mostly
similar across cultural settings. In a second group of
studies, we assessed 1-year-old children's skills in
participating in interactive episodes of collaboration and
joint attention.Again in these studies the general finding
was one of cross-cultural similarity. In a final pair of
studies, we assessed 2- to 3-year-old children's skills
within two symbolic systems (pretense and pictorial). Here
we found that the Canadian children who had much more
experience with such symbols showed skills at an earlier
age.Our overall conclusion is that young children in all
cultural settings get sufficient amounts of the right kinds
of social experience to develop their most basic
social-cognitive skills for interacting with others and
participating in culture at around the same age. In
contrast, children's acquisition of more culturally specific
skills for use in practices involving artifacts and symbols
is more dependent on specific learning experiences.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1540-5834.2011.00603.x},
Key = {fds351735}
}
@article{fds351737,
Author = {Stumper, B and Bannard, C and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {"Frequent frames" in German child-directed speech: a limited
cue to grammatical categories.},
Journal = {Cognitive science},
Volume = {35},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1190-1205},
Year = {2011},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01187.x},
Abstract = {Mintz (2003) found that in English child-directed speech,
frequently occurring frames formed by linking the preceding
(A) and succeeding (B) word (A_x_B) could accurately predict
the syntactic category of the intervening word (x). This has
been successfully extended to French (Chemla, Mintz, Bernal,
& Christophe, 2009). In this paper, we show that, as for
Dutch (Erkelens, 2009), frequent frames in German do not
enable such accurate lexical categorization. This can be
explained by the characteristics of German including a less
restricted word order compared to English or French and the
frequent use of some forms as both determiner and pronoun in
colloquial German. Finally, we explore the relationship
between the accuracy of frames and their potential utility
and find that even some of those frames showing high
token-based accuracy are of limited value because they are
in fact set phrases with little or no variability in the
slot position.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01187.x},
Key = {fds351737}
}
@article{fds351736,
Author = {Hamann, K and Warneken, F and Greenberg, JR and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Collaboration encourages equal sharing in children but not
in chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Nature},
Volume = {476},
Number = {7360},
Pages = {328-331},
Year = {2011},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10278},
Abstract = {Humans actively share resources with one another to a much
greater degree than do other great apes, and much human
sharing is governed by social norms of fairness and equity.
When in receipt of a windfall of resources, human children
begin showing tendencies towards equitable distribution with
others at five to seven years of age. Arguably, however, the
primordial situation for human sharing of resources is that
which follows cooperative activities such as collaborative
foraging, when several individuals must share the spoils of
their joint efforts. Here we show that children of around
three years of age share with others much more equitably in
collaborative activities than they do in either windfall or
parallel-work situations. By contrast, one of humans' two
nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes),
'share' (make food available to another individual) just as
often whether they have collaborated with them or not. This
species difference raises the possibility that humans'
tendency to distribute resources equitably may have its
evolutionary roots in the sharing of spoils after
collaborative efforts.},
Doi = {10.1038/nature10278},
Key = {fds351736}
}
@article{fds351738,
Author = {Krajewski, G and Theakston, AL and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {How polish children switch from one case to another when
using novel nouns: Challenges for models of inflectional
morphology},
Journal = {Language and Cognitive Processes},
Volume = {26},
Number = {4-6},
Pages = {830-861},
Year = {2011},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2010.506062},
Abstract = {The two main models of children's acquisition of
inflectional morphology-the Dual-Mechanism approach and the
usage-based (schema-based) approach-have both been applied
mainly to languages with fairly simple morphological
systems. Here we report two studies of 2-3-year-old Polish
children's ability to generalise across case-inflectional
endings on nouns. In the first study, we found that the
morphological form in which children first encounter a noun
in Polish has a strong effect on their ability to produce
other forms of that same noun. In the second study, we found
that this effect is different depending on the target form
to which children are switching. Similarity between
inflectional endings played a crucial role in facilitating
the task, whereas the simple frequency of either source or
target forms was not a decisive factor in either study.
These findings undermine Dual-Mechanism models that posit
all-ornone acquisition of abstract morphological rules, and
they also present serious challenges for usage-based models,
in which frequency typically plays a key role. © 2010
Psychology Press.},
Doi = {10.1080/01690965.2010.506062},
Key = {fds351738}
}
@article{fds351739,
Author = {Grünloh, T and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {German children use prosody to identify participant roles in
transitive sentences},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {393-419},
Year = {2011},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2011.015},
Abstract = {Most studies examining children's understanding of
transitive sentences focus on the morphosyntactic properties
of the construction and ignore prosody. But adults use
prosody in many different ways to interpret ambiguous
sentences. In two studies we investigated whether 5-year-old
German children use prosody to determine participant roles
in object-first (OVS) sentences with novel verbs (i.e.,
whether they use prosodic marking to overrule word order as
a cue). Results showed that children identify participant
roles better in this atypically ordered construction when
sentences are realized with the marked, OVS-typical
intonational pattern, especially in combination with case
marking (Study 1). In a second study, we embedded these
sentences into an appropriate discourse context. The results
show that, even in the absence of any case marking, children
understand participant roles when they are realized with the
appropriate intonational pattern. These findings demonstrate
that young children can use intonation to help identify
participant roles in transitive sentences, at least in
marked constructions such as the German object-first (OVS)
construction. © 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG,
Berlin/New York.},
Doi = {10.1515/COGL.2011.015},
Key = {fds351739}
}
@article{fds351740,
Author = {Moll, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Social Engagement Leads 2-Year-Olds to Overestimate Others'
Knowledge},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {16},
Number = {3},
Pages = {248-265},
Year = {2011},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00044.x},
Abstract = {Previous research has found that young children recognize an
adult as being acquainted with an object most readily when
the child and adult have previously engaged socially with
that object together. In the current study, we tested the
hypothesis that such social engagement is so powerful that
it can sometimes lead children to overestimate what has been
shared. After having shared two objects with an adult in
turn, 2-year-old children played with a third object the
adult could not see. In three out of four conditions, the
adult remained co-present and/or communicated to the child
while she played with the third object. Children falsely
perceived the adult as being acquainted with the third
object when she remained co-present (whether or not she also
communicated) but not when she clearly terminated the
interaction by disengaging and leaving. These results
suggest that when young children are engaged with a
co-present person they tend to overestimate the other's
knowledge. © International Society on Infant Studies
(ISIS).},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00044.x},
Key = {fds351740}
}
@article{fds351741,
Author = {Schmidt, MFH and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children attribute normativity to novel actions
without pedagogy or normative language.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {14},
Number = {3},
Pages = {530-539},
Year = {2011},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01000.x},
Abstract = {Young children interpret some acts performed by adults as
normatively governed, that is, as capable of being performed
either rightly or wrongly. In previous experiments, children
have made this interpretation when adults introduced them to
novel acts with normative language (e.g. 'this is the way it
goes'), along with pedagogical cues signaling culturally
important information, and with social-pragmatic marking
that this action is a token of a familiar type. In the
current experiment, we exposed children to novel actions
with no normative language, and we systematically varied
pedagogical and social-pragmatic cues in an attempt to
identify which of them, if either, would lead children to
normative interpretations. We found that young 3-year-old
children inferred normativity without any normative language
and without any pedagogical cues. The only cue they used was
adult social-pragmatic marking of the action as familiar, as
if it were a token of a well-known type (as opposed to
performing it, as if inventing it on the spot). These
results suggest that - in the absence of explicit normative
language - young children interpret adult actions as
normatively governed based mainly on the intentionality
(perhaps signaling conventionality) with which they are
performed.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01000.x},
Key = {fds351741}
}
@article{fds366596,
Author = {Brandt, S and Verhagen, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {German children's productivity with simple transitive and
complement-clause constructions: Testing the effects of
frequency and variability},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {325-357},
Year = {2011},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2011.013},
Abstract = {The development of abstract schemas and productive rules in
language is affected by both token and type frequencies.
High token frequencies and surface similarities help to
discover formal and functional commonalities between
utterances and categorize them as instances of the same
schema. High type frequencies and diversity help to develop
slots in these schemas, which allow the production and
comprehension of novel utterances. In the current study we
looked at both token and type frequencies in two related
constructions in German child-directed speech: simple
transitive and complement-clause constructions. Both
constructions contain high frequency verbs, which
potentially support the development of verb-specific
schemas. However, only the frequent verbs in the transitive
constructions occur with a variety of subject types, which
also supports the development of a slot in the subject
position. We then used an elicited production task to
compare 4- and 5-year-old German-speaking children's
productivity with simple transitive constructions and
complement-clause constructions. The children were prompted
to change the subjects of high and low frequency simple
transitive verbs, such as essen 'eat' and naschen 'nibble',
mental-state complement-taking verbs, such as denken 'think'
and vermuten 'presume', and communication complement-taking
verbs, such as sagen 'say' and berichten 'report'. In
accordance with earlier findings, children had less
difficulty producing new utterances with high frequency
transitive verbs than with low frequency transitive verbs.
For the other verb classes, however, we found either reverse
frequency effects or no frequency effects. For these verb
classes, children's productivity can be determined by
diversity rather than simple token frequency. We discuss how
token frequency interacts with diversity, discourse
function, semantic complexity, and syntactic complexity. ©
2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New
York.},
Doi = {10.1515/COGL.2011.013},
Key = {fds366596}
}
@article{fds351742,
Author = {Jorschick, L and Endesfelder Quick and A and Glässer, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {German-English-speaking children's mixed NPs with 'correct'
agreement},
Journal = {Bilingualism},
Volume = {14},
Number = {2},
Pages = {173-183},
Year = {2011},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1366728910000131},
Abstract = {Previous research has reported that bilingual children
sometimes produce mixed noun phrases with 'correct' gender
agreement- A s in der dog (der being a masculine determiner
in German and the German word for dog, hund, being masculine
as well). However, these could obviously be due to chance or
to the indiscriminate use of a default determiner. In the
current study, we established with high statistical
reliability that each of three German-English bilingual
children, of 2-4 years of age, produced such mixed NPs with
'correct' agreement at significantly greater than chance
levels. Also noteworthy was the fact that all three children
produced such NPs with German determiners and English nouns
much more frequently than the reverse. These findings
provide a solid statistical foundation for further studies
into the phenomenon of mixed noun phrases with 'correct'
gender agreement.},
Doi = {10.1017/S1366728910000131},
Key = {fds351742}
}
@article{fds351743,
Author = {Vaish, A and Missana, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Three-year-old children intervene in third-party moral
transgressions.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {29},
Number = {Pt 1},
Pages = {124-130},
Year = {2011},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151010x532888},
Abstract = {We investigated children's moral behaviour in situations in
which a third party was harmed (the test case for possession
of agent-neutral moral norms). A 3-year-old and two puppets
each created a picture or clay sculpture, after which one
puppet left the room. In the Harm condition, the remaining
(actor) puppet then destroyed the absent (recipient)
puppet's picture or sculpture. In a Control condition, the
actor acted similarly but in a way that did not harm the
recipient. Children protested during the actor's actions,
and, upon the recipient's return, tattled on the actor and
behaved prosocially towards the recipient more in the Harm
than in the Control condition. This is the first study to
show that children as young as 3 years of age actively
intervene in third-party moral transgressions.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151010x532888},
Key = {fds351743}
}
@article{fds351744,
Author = {Schmelz, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees know that others make inferences.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {108},
Number = {7},
Pages = {3077-3079},
Year = {2011},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1000469108},
Abstract = {If chimpanzees are faced with two opaque boards on a table,
in the context of searching for a single piece of food, they
do not choose the board lying flat (because if food was
under there it would not be lying flat) but, rather, they
choose the slanted one- presumably inferring that some
unperceived food underneath is causing the slant. Here we
demonstrate that chimpanzees know that other chimpanzees in
the same situation will make a similar inference. In a
back-and-forth foraging game, when their competitor had
chosen before them, chimpanzees tended to avoid the slanted
board on the assumption that the competitor had already
chosen it. Chimpanzees can determine the inferences that a
conspecific is likely to make and then adjust their
competitive strategies accordingly.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.1000469108},
Key = {fds351744}
}
@article{fds351745,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Nitzschner, M and Wobber, V and Tennie, C and Bräuer,
J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do dogs distinguish rational from irrational
acts?},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {81},
Number = {1},
Pages = {195-203},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.10.001},
Abstract = {Range et al. (2007, Current Biology, 17, 868-872) found that
dogs, Canis familiaris, copy others' means to achieve a goal
more often when those means are the rational solution to a
problem than when they are irrational. In our first
experiment, we added a further control condition and failed
to replicate this result, suggesting that dogs in the
previous study may have been distracted in the irrational
condition rather than selectively attending to the
irrational nature of the action. In a second experiment, the
demonstrator used an unusual means (an extended leg) to
communicate the location of food, either rationally (her
hands were occupied) or irrationally (she could have used
her hand). Dogs succeeded in finding the food irrespective
of whether the leg action was rational or irrational. Our
results suggest that dogs do not distinguish rational from
irrational acts, instead simply being proficient at
monitoring human behavioural patterns. © 2010 The
Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.10.001},
Key = {fds351745}
}
@article{fds351746,
Author = {Melis, AP and Warneken, F and Jensen, K and Schneider, AC and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees help conspecifics obtain food and non-food
items},
Journal = {Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological
Sciences},
Volume = {278},
Number = {1710},
Pages = {1405-1413},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2010.1735},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) sometimes help both humans and
conspecifics in experimental situations in which immediate
selfish benefits can be ruled out. However, in several
experiments, chimpanzees have not provided food to a
conspecific even when it would cost them nothing, leading to
the hypothesis that prosociality in the food-provisioning
context is a derived trait in humans. Here, we show that
chimpanzees help conspecifics obtain both food and non-food
items-given that the donor cannot get the food herself.
Furthermore, we show that the key factor eliciting
chimpanzees' targeted helping is the recipients' attempts to
either get the food or get the attention of the potential
donor. The current findings add to the accumulating body of
evidence that humans and chimpanzees share the motivation
and skills necessary to help others in situations in which
they cannot selfishly benefit. Humans, however, show
prosocial motives more readily and in a wider range of
contexts. © 2010 The Royal Society.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2010.1735},
Key = {fds351746}
}
@article{fds351747,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Individual differences in social, cognitive, and
morphological aspects of infant pointing},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {26},
Number = {1},
Pages = {16-29},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.10.001},
Abstract = {Little is known about the origins of the pointing gesture.
We sought to gain insight into its emergence by
investigating individual differences in the pointing of
12-month-old infants in two ways. First, we looked at
differences in the communicative and interactional uses of
pointing and asked how different hand shapes relate to point
frequency, accompanying vocalizations, and mothers'
pointing. Second, we looked at differences in
social-cognitive skills of point comprehension and imitation
and tested whether these were related to infants' own
pointing. Infants' and mothers' spontaneous pointing
correlated with one another, as did infants' point
production and comprehension. In particular, infants'
index-finger pointing had a profile different from simple
whole-hand pointing. It was more frequent, it was more often
accompanied by vocalizations, and it correlated more
strongly with comprehension of pointing (especially to
occluded referents). We conclude that whole-hand and
index-finger pointing differ qualitatively and suggest that
it is index-finger pointing that first embodies infants'
understanding of communicative intentions. © 2011 Elsevier
Inc.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2010.10.001},
Key = {fds351747}
}
@article{fds351749,
Author = {Warneken, F and Lohse, K and Melis, AP and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children share the spoils after collaboration},
Journal = {Psychological Science},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {267-273},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797610395392},
Abstract = {Egalitarian behavior is considered to be a species-typical
component of human cooperation. Human adults tend to share
resources equally, even if they have the opportunity to keep
a larger portion for themselves. Recent experiments have
suggested that this tendency emerges fairly late in human
ontogeny, not before 6 or 7 years of age. Here we show that
3-year-old children share mostly equally with a peer after
they have worked together actively to obtain rewards in a
collaboration task, even when those rewards could easily be
monopolized. These findings contrast with previous findings
from a similar experiment with chimpanzees, who tended to
monopolize resources whenever they could. The potentially
species-unique tendency of humans to share equally emerges
early in ontogeny, perhaps originating in collaborative
interactions among peers. © The Author(s)
2011.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797610395392},
Key = {fds351749}
}
@article{fds351750,
Author = {Scheider, L and Grassmann, S and Kaminski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic dogs use contextual information and tone of voice
when following a human pointing gesture.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {6},
Number = {7},
Pages = {e21676},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021676},
Abstract = {Domestic dogs are skillful at using the human pointing
gesture. In this study we investigated whether dogs take
contextual information into account when following pointing
gestures, specifically, whether they follow human pointing
gestures more readily in the context in which food has been
found previously. Also varied was the human's tone of voice
as either imperative or informative. Dogs were more
sustained in their searching behavior in the 'context'
condition as opposed to the 'no context' condition,
suggesting that they do not simply follow a pointing gesture
blindly but use previously acquired contextual information
to inform their interpretation of that pointing gesture.
Dogs also showed more sustained searching behavior when
there was pointing than when there was not, suggesting that
they expect to find a referent when they see a human point.
Finally, dogs searched more in high-pitched informative
trials as opposed to the low-pitched imperative trials,
whereas in the latter dogs seemed more inclined to respond
by sitting. These findings suggest that a dog's response to
a pointing gesture is flexible and depends on the context as
well as the human's tone of voice.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0021676},
Key = {fds351750}
}
@article{fds351751,
Author = {Bullinger, AF and Zimmermann, F and Kaminski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Different social motives in the gestural communication of
chimpanzees and human children.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {14},
Number = {1},
Pages = {58-68},
Year = {2011},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.00952.x},
Abstract = {Both chimpanzees and human infants use the pointing gesture
with human adults, but it is not clear if they are doing so
for the same social motives. In two studies, we presented
chimpanzees and human 25-month-olds with the opportunity to
point for a hidden tool (in the presence of a non-functional
distractor). In one condition it was clear that the tool
would be used to retrieve a reward for the pointing subject
(so the pointing was selfish or 'for-me'), whereas in the
other condition it was clear that the tool would be used to
retrieve the reward for the experimenter (so the pointing
was helpful or 'for-you'). The chimpanzees pointed reliably
only when they themselves benefited, whereas the human
children pointed reliably no matter who benefited. These
results are interpreted as evidence for the especially
cooperative nature of human communication.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.00952.x},
Key = {fds351751}
}
@article{fds351753,
Author = {Grosse, G and Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {21-Month-olds understand the cooperative logic of
requests},
Journal = {Journal of Pragmatics},
Volume = {42},
Number = {12},
Pages = {3377-3383},
Year = {2010},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.05.005},
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.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2010.05.005},
Key = {fds351753}
}
@article{fds351754,
Author = {Greenberg, JR and Hamann, K and Warneken, F and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzee helping in collaborative and noncollaborative
contexts},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {80},
Number = {5},
Pages = {873-880},
Year = {2010},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.08.008},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, help others in a variety of
contexts. Some researchers have claimed that this only
occurs when food is not involved and the recipient actively
solicits help. In the current study, however, we found that
chimpanzees often helped conspecifics obtain food in a
pulling task with no solicitation whatsoever, in a situation
in which, based on past experience, the conspecific's desire
for the food was apparent. We also assessed whether the
collaborative context of the situation impacted helping
rates. Specifically, we compared how often both partners
obtained rewards when one partner needed the help of the
other, who had already received a reward for free (helping
without collaboration), and when one partner needed the
other's help after they had already begun collaborating
(helping during collaboration). Partners provided assistance
significantly more often in both of these helping conditions
than in a control condition in which partners could provide
unneeded help. However, unlike human children who have been
tested in a similar task, chimpanzees did not help their
partner more during (than without) collaboration. These
results suggest that chimpanzees' helping behaviour is more
robust than previously believed, but at the same time may
have different evolutionary roots from the helping behaviour
of humans. © 2010 The Association for the Study of Animal
Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.08.008},
Key = {fds351754}
}
@article{fds351755,
Author = {Grassmann, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Prosodic stress on a word directs 24-month-olds' attention
to a contextually new referent},
Journal = {Journal of Pragmatics},
Volume = {42},
Number = {11},
Pages = {3098-3105},
Year = {2010},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.019},
Abstract = {From the very beginning of language acquisition, young
children are sensitive to what is given versus what is new
in their discourse with others. Here we ask whether
24-month-olds use this skill to interpret prosodic
highlighting as an invitation to focus their attention on
what is new in the situation. Using an eye-tracking
methodology, we compared children's visual fixation of
referents that were given versus those that were new in the
situation when the prosodic highlighting of their
corresponding word varied. Results showed that 24-month-old
children looked longer to the referents of prosodically
stressed words when those referents were new to the context.
Neither stress of the word alone nor newness of the referent
alone was sufficient to induce children to focus their
attention on the target referent. These results suggest that
from an early age children understand at least one important
communicative function of prosodic stress. © 2010 Elsevier
B.V.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.019},
Key = {fds351755}
}
@article{fds351756,
Author = {Vaish, A and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children selectively avoid helping people with harmful
intentions.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {81},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1661-1669},
Year = {2010},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01500.x},
Abstract = {Two studies investigated whether young children are
selectively prosocial toward others, based on the others'
moral behaviors. In Study 1 (N = 54), 3-year-olds watched 1
adult (the actor) harming or helping another adult. Children
subsequently helped the harmful actor less often than a
third (previously neutral) adult, but helped the helpful and
neutral adults equally often. In Study 2 (N = 36),
3-year-olds helped an actor who intended but failed to harm
another adult less often than a neutral adult, but helped an
accidentally harmful and a neutral adult equally often.
Children's prosocial behavior was thus mediated by the
intentions behind the actor's moral behavior, irrespective
of outcome. Children thus selectively avoid helping those
who cause--or even intend to cause--others
harm.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01500.x},
Key = {fds351756}
}
@article{fds351757,
Author = {Grosse, G and Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Infants communicate in order to be understood.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {46},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1710-1722},
Year = {2010},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020727},
Abstract = {Infants intentionally communicate with others from before
their 1st birthday. But there is some question about how
they understand the communicative process. Do they
understand that for their request to work the recipient must
both understand the request and be cooperatively disposed to
fulfill it? On the basis of the study by Shwe and Markman
(1997), we developed a new paradigm that tested whether and
how 18-, 24-, and 30-month-old children repair a failed
request. Children at all ages repaired their requests in the
case of a misunderstanding even if they had obtained the
requested object already. They also repaired differently
depending on the precise reason for the communicative
failure (e.g., misunderstanding the referent versus the
communicative intent) and did not repair in the case of
correct understanding, even if they did not get the
requested object. Thus, from very early in their
communicative careers, young children operate with a basic
understanding of the mental and cooperative nature of human
communication.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0020727},
Key = {fds351757}
}
@article{fds351758,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Hamann, K and Warneken, F and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Bigger knows better: young children selectively learn rule
games from adults rather than from peers.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {28},
Number = {Pt 4},
Pages = {785-798},
Year = {2010},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151009x479178},
Abstract = {Preschoolers' selective learning from adult versus peer
models was investigated. Extending previous research,
children from age 3 were shown to selectively learn simple
rule games from adult rather than peer models. Furthermore,
this selective learning was not confined to preferentially
performing certain acts oneself, but more specifically had a
normative dimension to it: children understood the way the
adult demonstrated an act not only as the better one, but as
the normatively appropriate/correct one. This was indicated
in their spontaneous normative interventions (protest,
critique, etc.) in response to third party acts deviating
from the one demonstrated by the adult model. Various
interpretations of these findings are discussed in the
broader context of the development of children's social
cognition and cultural learning.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151009x479178},
Key = {fds351758}
}
@article{fds351759,
Author = {Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Infant cognition},
Journal = {Current Biology},
Volume = {20},
Number = {20},
Year = {2010},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2010.09.001},
Abstract = {Until fairly recently, young infants were thought to be as
cognitively incompetent as they were morally innocent. They
were epistemological 'tabulae rasae', helpless 'bundles of
reflexes' who spent all of their time sleeping, crying and
sucking. In the famous words of William James, infants lived
in "one great blooming, buzzing confusion". © 2010 Elsevier
Ltd. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cub.2010.09.001},
Key = {fds351759}
}
@article{fds351761,
Author = {Liebal, K and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Infants' use of shared experience in declarative
pointing},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {15},
Number = {5},
Pages = {545-556},
Year = {2010},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2009.00028.x},
Abstract = {In this study, we asked whether 14- and 18-month-old infants
use the experiences they have previously shared with others
when deciding what to point to for them declaratively. After
sharing a particular type of referent with an adult in an
excited manner, 18-month-olds subsequently found a picture
of that type of referent more worthy of declarative pointing
than some other picture-but only for that adult, not for a
different adult. Mixed results were found with
14-month-olds. We thus show that by 18 months, infants
accurately track their shared experiences with specific
individuals and use this to make communicative decisions.
These results also demonstrate that infants sometimes use
declarative pointing to indicate not totally "new" things,
as in the classic formulation, but things which are "old" in
the sense that "we" should recognize them as similar to
something we have previously shared. © International
Society on Infant Studies (ISIS).},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1532-7078.2009.00028.x},
Key = {fds351761}
}
@article{fds351762,
Author = {Kirschner Sebastian and S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old
children},
Journal = {Evolution and Human Behavior},
Volume = {31},
Number = {5},
Pages = {354-364},
Year = {2010},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.04.004},
Abstract = {Humansw are the only primates that make music. But the
evolutionary origins and functions of music are unclear.
Given that in traditional cultures music making and dancing
are often integral parts of important group ceremonies such
as initiation rites, weddings or preparations for battle,
one hypothesis is that music evolved into a tool that
fosters social bonding and group cohesion, ultimately
increasing prosocial in-group behavior and cooperation. Here
we provide support for this hypothesis by showing that joint
music making among 4-year-old children increases subsequent
spontaneous cooperative and helpful behavior, relative to a
carefully matched control condition with the same level of
social and linguistic interaction but no music. Among other
functional mechanisms, we propose that music making,
including joint singing and dancing, encourages the
participants to keep a constant audiovisual representation
of the collective intention and shared goal of vocalizing
and moving together in time - thereby effectively satisfying
the intrinsic human desire to share emotions, experiences
and activities with others. © 2010 Elsevier
Inc.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2010.04.004},
Key = {fds351762}
}
@article{fds351763,
Author = {Brandt, S and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Development ofword order in german complement-clause
constructions: Effects of input frequencies, lexical items,
and discourse function},
Journal = {Language},
Volume = {86},
Number = {3},
Pages = {583-610},
Year = {2010},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2010.0010},
Abstract = {We investigate the development of word order in German
children's spontaneous production of complement clauses.
From soon after their second birthday, young German children
use both verb-final complements with complementizers and
verb-second complements without complementizers. By their
third birthday they use both kinds of complement clauses
with a variety of complement-taking verbs. Early in
development, however, verb-final complements and verbsecond
complements are used with separate sets of complement-taking
verbs, and they are used with separate sets of item-specific
main-clause phrases. For example, initially phrases such as
'I want to see' were used exclusively with verb-final
complements, whereas phrases such as 'do you see' and 'you
have to say' were used exclusively with verb-second
complements. Only later in development-when specific
complement-taking verbs were used with both verb-second and
verbfinal complements, with a greater variety of main-clause
phrases, and when specific main-clause phrases were used
with both verb-second and verb-final complements-was there
evidence for structural links between these various,
item-based, complement-clause constructions.},
Doi = {10.1353/lan.2010.0010},
Key = {fds351763}
}
@article{fds320798,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Hare, B and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Differences in the cognitive skills of bonobos and
chimpanzees.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {5},
Number = {8},
Pages = {e12438},
Year = {2010},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0012438},
Abstract = {While bonobos and chimpanzees are both genetically and
behaviorally very similar, they also differ in significant
ways. Bonobos are more cautious and socially tolerant while
chimpanzees are more dependent on extractive foraging, which
requires tools. The similarities suggest the two species
should be cognitively similar while the behavioral
differences predict where the two species should differ
cognitively. We compared both species on a wide range of
cognitive problems testing their understanding of the
physical and social world. Bonobos were more skilled at
solving tasks related to theory of mind or an understanding
of social causality, while chimpanzees were more skilled at
tasks requiring the use of tools and an understanding of
physical causality. These species differences support the
role of ecological and socio-ecological pressures in shaping
cognitive skills over relatively short periods of
evolutionary time.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0012438},
Key = {fds320798}
}
@article{fds351765,
Author = {Seed, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Primate cognition.},
Journal = {Topics in cognitive science},
Volume = {2},
Number = {3},
Pages = {407-419},
Year = {2010},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01099.x},
Abstract = {As the cognitive revolution was slow to come to the study of
animal behavior, the vast majority of what we know about
primate cognition has been discovered in the last 30 years.
Building on the recognition that the physical and social
worlds of humans and their living primate relatives pose
many of the same evolutionary challenges, programs of
research have established that the most basic cognitive
skills and mental representations that humans use to
navigate those worlds are already possessed by other
primates. There may be differences between humans and other
primates, however, in more complex cognitive skills, such as
reasoning about relations, causality, time, and other minds.
Of special importance, the human primate seems to possess a
species-unique set of adaptations for "cultural
intelligence," which are broad reaching in their effects on
human cognition.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01099.x},
Key = {fds351765}
}
@article{fds351766,
Author = {Matthews, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {What's in a manner of speaking? Children's sensitivity to
partner-specific referential precedents.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {46},
Number = {4},
Pages = {749-760},
Year = {2010},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0019657},
Abstract = {Do young children form "referential pacts"? If a person has
referred to an object with a certain term (e.g., the horse),
will children expect this person to use this term in the
future but allow others to use a different expression (e.g.,
the pony)? One hundred twenty-eight children between 3 and 5
years old co-operated with an experimenter (E1) to move toys
to new locations on a shelf. E1 established referential
terms for all toys in a warm-up game. Then, either the
original partner, E1, or a new partner, E2, played a second
game with the same toys. In this game, the experimenters
referred to toys using either their original terms from the
warm-up game or new terms. Children were slower to react to
new terms than old, and this difference in reaction times
was greater in the original partner condition (but only on
the first trial). Children sometimes protested at the use of
new terms, doing so regardless of their interlocutor's
identity. We contrast these findings with those for adults
and discuss their implications for the debate regarding the
nature of referential pacts.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0019657},
Key = {fds351766}
}
@article{fds351767,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Herrmann, E},
Title = {Ape and human cognition: What's the difference?},
Journal = {Current Directions in Psychological Science},
Volume = {19},
Number = {1},
Pages = {3-8},
Year = {2010},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0963721409359300},
Abstract = {Humans share the vast majority of their cognitive skills
with other great apes. In addition, however, humans have
also evolved a unique suite of cognitive skills and
motivations-collectively referred to as shared
intentionality-for living collaboratively, learning
socially, and exchanging information in cultural groups. ©
The Author(s) 2010.},
Doi = {10.1177/0963721409359300},
Key = {fds351767}
}
@article{fds351768,
Author = {Melis, AP and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {36-month-olds conceal visual and auditory information from
others.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {13},
Number = {3},
Pages = {479-489},
Year = {2010},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00892.x},
Abstract = {By three years of age, children are skilled at assessing
under which circumstances others can see things. However,
nothing is known about whether they can use this knowledge
to guide their own deceptive behaviour. Here we investigated
3-year-olds' ability to strategically inhibit or conceal
forbidden actions that a nearby adult experimenter could see
or hear. In the first experiment, children were more likely
to disobey the adult when she did not have visual access to
their activities than they were when she was looking at
them. In the second experiment, in which the adult could
never see the child, children refrained from making noise
when engaging in a prohibited action that the adult might
hear. These results suggest that by three years of age
children use their knowledge of others' perceptual states to
decide whether it is safe to commit a transgression and,
moreover, actively conceal perceptual cues that could reveal
to others their ongoing transgression.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00892.x},
Key = {fds351768}
}
@article{fds351779,
Author = {Tennie, C and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Evidence for emulation in chimpanzees in social settings
using the floating peanut task.},
Journal = {PloS one},
Volume = {5},
Number = {5},
Pages = {e10544},
Year = {2010},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010544},
Abstract = {<h4>Background</h4>It is still unclear which observational
learning mechanisms underlie the transmission of difficult
problem-solving skills in chimpanzees. In particular, two
different mechanisms have been proposed: imitation and
emulation. Previous studies have largely failed to control
for social factors when these mechanisms were
targeted.<h4>Methods</h4>In an attempt to resolve the
existing discrepancies, we adopted the 'floating peanut
task', in which subjects need to spit water into a tube
until it is sufficiently full for floating peanuts to be
grasped. In a previous study only a few chimpanzees were
able to invent the necessary solution (and they either did
so in their first trials or never). Here we compared success
levels in baseline tests with two experimental conditions
that followed: 1) A full model condition to test whether
social demonstrations would be effective, and 2) A social
emulation control condition, in which a human experimenter
poured water from a bottle into the tube, to test whether
results information alone (present in both experimental
conditions) would also induce successes. Crucially, we
controlled for social factors in both experimental
conditions. Both types of demonstrations significantly
increased successful spitting, with no differences between
demonstration types. We also found that younger subjects
were more likely to succeed than older ones. Our analysis
showed that mere order effects could not explain our
results.<h4>Conclusion</h4>The full demonstration condition
(which potentially offers additional information to
observers, in the form of actions), induced no more
successes than the emulation condition. Hence, emulation
learning could explain the success in both conditions. This
finding has broad implications for the interpretation of
chimpanzee traditions, for which emulation learning may
perhaps suffice.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0010544},
Key = {fds351779}
}
@article{fds351772,
Author = {Abbot-Smith, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The influence of frequency and semantic similarity on how
children learn grammar},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {30},
Number = {1},
Pages = {79-101},
Year = {2010},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142723709350525},
Abstract = {Lexically based learning and semantic analogy may both play
a role in the learning of grammar. To investigate this,
5-year-old German children were trained on a miniature
language (nominally English) involving two grammatical
constructions, each of which was associated with a different
semantic verb class. Training was followed by elicited
production and grammaticality judgement tests with trained
verbs and a generalization test, involving untrained verbs.
In the trained verbs judgement test the children were above
chance at associating particular verbs with the
constructions in which they had heard them. They did this
significantly more often with verbs which they had heard
especially frequently in particular constructions,
indicating lexically based learning. There was also an
interaction between frequency and semantic class (or the
particular verbs). In the generalization judgement test the
children were at chance overall. In the elicited production
generalization test 75% of the children used the same
construction for all items.},
Doi = {10.1177/0142723709350525},
Key = {fds351772}
}
@article{fds320799,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Hernández-Lloreda, MV and Call, J and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The structure of individual differences in the cognitive
abilities of children and chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {21},
Number = {1},
Pages = {102-110},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797609356511},
Abstract = {Most studies of animal cognition focus on group performance
and neglect individual differences and the correlational
structure of cognitive abilities. Moreover, no previous
studies have compared the correlational structure of
cognitive abilities in nonhuman animals and humans. We
compared the structure of individual differences of 106
chimpanzees and 105 two-year-old human children using 15
cognitive tasks that posed problems about the physical or
social world. We found a similar factor of spatial cognition
for the two species. But whereas the chimpanzees had only a
single factor in addition to spatial cognition, the children
had two distinct additional factors: one for physical
cognition and one for social cognition. These findings, in
combination with previous research, support the proposal
that humans share many cognitive skills with nonhuman apes,
especially for dealing with the physical world, but in
addition have evolved some specialized skills of social
cognition.},
Doi = {10.1177/0956797609356511},
Key = {fds320799}
}
@article{fds351748,
Author = {Ibbotson, P and Theakston, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The role of pronoun frames in early comprehension of
transitive constructions in English},
Journal = {Language Learning and Development},
Volume = {7},
Number = {1},
Pages = {24-39},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15475441003732914},
Abstract = {Case marking in English in available only on some pronouns
and only in some cases. It is unknown whether young children
acquiring English nevertheless make use of this highly
restricted marking as a cue to sentence interpretation. The
current study therefore examined how 2- and 3-year-old
English children use case-marked pronoun frames and
constructional word order cues (actives versus passives) to
understand agent-patient relations in transitive sentences
containing novel verbs. In a pointing comprehension test,
2-year-olds used pronoun frames containing two case-marked
pronouns to help them interpret grammatical sentences, both
actives and passives, but they were unable to assign agent
patient relationships in any consistent way with
ungrammatical pronoun frames. Threeyear- olds also used
pronoun frames to interpret grammatical active and passive
sentences (with either one or two case-marked pronouns) but
varied in their interpretation of ungrammatical sentences
according to pronoun frame. These results suggest that the
role of case-marked pronouns has been underestimated in
English language acquisition, and that even very young
English children use multiple cues to comprehend transitive
sentences. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.},
Doi = {10.1080/15475441003732914},
Key = {fds351748}
}
@article{fds351775,
Author = {Kidd, E and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Lexical frequency and exemplar-based learning effects in
language acquisition: evidence from sentential
complements},
Journal = {Language Sciences},
Volume = {32},
Number = {1},
Pages = {132-142},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2009.05.002},
Abstract = {Usage-based approaches to language acquisition argue that
children acquire the grammar of their target language using
general-cognitive learning principles. The current paper
reports on an experiment that tested a central assumption of
the usage-based approach: argument structure patterns are
connected to high frequency verbs that facilitate
acquisition. Sixty children (N = 60) aged 4- and 6-years
participated in a sentence recall/lexical priming experiment
that manipulated the frequency with which the target verbs
occurred in the finite sentential complement construction in
English. The results showed that the children performed
better on sentences that contained high frequency verbs.
Furthermore, the children's performance suggested that their
knowledge of finite sentential complements relies most
heavily on one particular verb - think, supporting arguments
made by Goldberg [Goldberg, A.E., 2006. Constructions at
Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford
University Press, Oxford], who argued that skewed input
facilitates language learning. Crown Copyright ©
2009.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.langsci.2009.05.002},
Key = {fds351775}
}
@article{fds351776,
Author = {Salomo, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's sensitivity to new and given information
when answering predicate-focus questions},
Journal = {Applied Psycholinguistics},
Volume = {31},
Number = {1},
Pages = {101-115},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S014271640999018X},
Abstract = {In two studies we investigated 2-year-old children's answers
to predicate-focus questions depending on the preceding
context. Children were presented with a successive series of
short video clips showing transitive actions (e.g., frog
washing duck) in which either the action (action-new) or the
patient (patient-new) was the changing, and therefore new,
element. During the last scene the experimenter asked the
question (e.g., What's the frog doing now?). We found that
children expressed the action and the patient in the
patient-new condition but expressed only the action in the
action-new condition. These results show that children are
sensitive to both the predicate-focus question and newness
in context. A further finding was that children expressed
new patients in their answers more often when there was a
verbal context prior to the questions than when there was
not. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.},
Doi = {10.1017/S014271640999018X},
Key = {fds351776}
}
@article{fds351777,
Author = {Chan, A and Meints, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's comprehension of English SVO word order
revisited: Testing the same children in act-out and
intermodal preferential looking tasks},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {25},
Number = {1},
Pages = {30-45},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.10.002},
Abstract = {Act-out and intermodal preferential looking (IPL) tasks were
administered to 67 English children aged 2-0, 2-9 and 3-5 to
assess their comprehension of canonical SVO transitive word
order with both familiar and novel verbs. Children at 3-5
and at 2-9 showed evidence of comprehending word order in
both verb conditions and both tasks, although children at
2-9 performed better with familiar than with novel verbs in
the act-out task. Children at 2-0 showed no evidence of
comprehending word order in either task with novel verbs;
with familiar verbs they showed competence in the IPL task
but not in the act-out task. The difference in performance
for familiar and novel verbs from the same children at 2-0,
on the IPL task, and at 2-9, on the act-out task, is
consistent with the hypothesis that early
linguistic/cognitive representations are graded in strength,
with early representations still weak and very task
dependent. However, these representations also become more
abstract with development, as indicated by the familiarity
effect even in the more sensitive IPL task. © 2009 Elsevier
Inc. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.10.002},
Key = {fds351777}
}
@article{fds351778,
Author = {Grassmann, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children follow pointing over words in interpreting
acts of reference.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {13},
Number = {1},
Pages = {252-263},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00871.x},
Abstract = {Adults refer young children's attention to things in two
basic ways: through the use of pointing (and other deictic
gestures) and words (and other linguistic conventions). In
the current studies, we referred young children (2- and
4-year-olds) to things in conflicting ways, that is, by
pointing to one object while indicating linguistically (in
some way) a different object. In Study 1, a novel word was
put into competition with a pointing gesture in a mutual
exclusivity paradigm; that is, with a known and a novel
object in front of the child, the adult pointed to the known
object (e.g. a cup) while simultaneously requesting 'the
modi'. In contrast to the findings of Jaswal and Hansen
(2006), children followed almost exclusively the pointing
gesture. In Study 2, when a known word was put into
competition with a pointing gesture - the adult pointed to
the novel object but requested 'the car'- children still
followed the pointing gesture. In Study 3, the referent of
the pointing gesture was doubly contradicted by the lexical
information - the adult pointed to a known object (e.g. a
cup) but requested 'the car'- in which case children
considered pointing and lexical information equally strong.
Together, these findings suggest that in disambiguating acts
of reference, young children at both 2 and 4 years of age
rely most heavily on pragmatic information (e.g. in a
pointing gesture), and only secondarily on lexical
conventions and principles.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00871.x},
Key = {fds351778}
}
@article{fds352505,
Author = {Whiten, A and McGrew, WC and Aiello, LC and Boesch, C and Boyd, R and Byrne, RW and Dunbar, RIM and Matsuzawa, T and Silk, JB and Tomasello,
M and van Schaik, CP and Wrangham, R},
Title = {Studying extant species to model our past.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {327},
Number = {5964},
Pages = {410},
Year = {2010},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.327.5964.410-a},
Doi = {10.1126/science.327.5964.410-a},
Key = {fds352505}
}
@article{fds320797,
Author = {Hare, B and Rosati, AG and Kaminski, J and Braeuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The domestication hypothesis for dogs' skills with human
communication: A response to Udell et al. (2008) and Wynne
et al. (2008)},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {79},
Number = {2},
Pages = {e1-e6},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2010},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.06.031},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.06.031},
Key = {fds320797}
}
@article{fds320800,
Author = {Melis, AP and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees coordinate in a negotiation game},
Journal = {Evolution and Human Behavior},
Volume = {30},
Number = {6},
Pages = {381-392},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2009},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.05.003},
Abstract = {A crucially important aspect of human cooperation is the
ability to negotiate to cooperative outcomes when interests
over resources conflict. Although chimpanzees and other
social species may negotiate conflicting interests regarding
travel direction or activity timing, very little is known
about their ability to negotiate conflicting preferences
over food. In the current study, we presented pairs of
chimpanzees with a choice between two cooperative tasks-one
with equal payoffs (e.g., 5-5) and one with unequal payoffs
(higher and lower than in the equal option, e.g., 10-1).
This created a conflict of interests between partners with
failure to work together on the same cooperative task
resulting in no payoff for either partner. The chimpanzee
pairs cooperated successfully in as many as 78-94% of the
trials across experiments. Even though dominant chimpanzees
preferred the unequal option (as they would obtain the
largest payoff), subordinate chimpanzees were able to get
their way (the equal option) in 22-56% of trials across
conditions. Various analyses showed that subjects were both
strategic and also cognizant of the strategies used by their
partners. These results demonstrate that one of our two
closest primate relatives, the chimpanzee, can settle
conflicts of interest over resources in mutually satisfying
ways-even without the social norms of equity, planned
strategies of reciprocity, and the complex communication
characteristic of human negotiation. © 2009 Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.05.003},
Key = {fds320800}
}
@article{fds351780,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Done wrong or said wrong? Young children understand the
normative directions of fit of different speech
acts.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {113},
Number = {2},
Pages = {205-212},
Year = {2009},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.07.013},
Abstract = {Young children use and comprehend different kinds of speech
acts from the beginning of their communicative development.
But it is not clear how they understand the conventional and
normative structure of such speech acts. In particular,
imperative speech acts have a world-to-word direction of
fit, such that their fulfillment means that the world must
change to fit the word. In contrast, assertive speech acts
have a word-to-world direction of fit, such that their
fulfillment means that the word must fit the world truly. In
the current study, 3-year-olds understood this difference
explicitly, as they directed their criticisms selectively to
actors when they did not follow the imperatives of the
speaker, but to speakers when they did not describe an
actor's actions correctly. Two-year-olds criticized
appropriately in the case of imperatives, but showed a more
ambiguous pattern in the case of assertions. These findings
identify another domain in which children's normative
understanding of human activity emerges around the third
year of life.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2009.07.013},
Key = {fds351780}
}
@article{fds351781,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Tempelmann, S and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic dogs comprehend human communication with iconic
signs.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {12},
Number = {6},
Pages = {831-837},
Year = {2009},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00815.x},
Abstract = {A key skill in early human development is the ability to
comprehend communicative intentions as expressed in both
nonlinguistic gestures and language. In the current studies,
we confronted domestic dogs (some of whom knew many human
'words') with a task in which they had to infer the intended
referent of a human's communicative act via iconic
signs--specifically, replicas and photographs. Both trained
and untrained dogs successfully used iconic replicas to
fetch the desired item, with many doing so from the first
trial. Dogs' ability to use photographs in this same
situation was less consistent. Because simple matching to
sample in experimental contexts typically takes hundreds of
trials (and because similarity between iconic sign and
target item did not predict success), we propose that dogs'
skillful performance in the current task reflects important
aspects of the comprehension of human communicative
intentions.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00815.x},
Key = {fds351781}
}
@article{fds351782,
Author = {Bannard, C and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Modeling children's early grammatical knowledge.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {106},
Number = {41},
Pages = {17284-17289},
Year = {2009},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0905638106},
Abstract = {Theories of grammatical development differ in how much
abstract knowledge they attribute to young children. Here,
we report a series of experiments using a computational
model to evaluate the explanatory power of child grammars
based not on abstract rules but on concrete words and
phrases and some local abstractions associated with these
words and phrases. We use a Bayesian procedure to extract
such item-based grammars from transcriptions of 28+ h of
each of two children's speech at 2 and 3 years of age. We
then use these grammars to parse all of the unique multiword
utterances from transcriptions of separate recordings of
these same children at each of the two ages. We found that
at 2 years of age such a model had good coverage and
predictive fit, with the children showing radically limited
productivity. Furthermore, adding expert-annotated parts of
speech to the induction procedure had little effect on
coverage, with the exception of the category of noun. At age
3, the children's productivity sharply increased and the
addition of a verb and a noun category markedly improved the
model's performance.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.0905638106},
Key = {fds351782}
}
@article{fds351783,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Universal grammar is dead},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {32},
Number = {5},
Pages = {470-471},
Year = {2009},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X09990744},
Abstract = {The idea of a biologically evolved, universal grammar with
linguistic content is a myth, perpetuated by three spurious
explanatory strategies of generative linguists. To make
progress in understanding human linguistic competence,
cognitive scientists must abandon the idea of an innate
universal grammar and instead try to build theories that
explain both linguistic universals and diversity and how
they emerge. © 2009 Cambridge University
Press.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X09990744},
Key = {fds351783}
}
@article{fds320801,
Author = {Wobber, V and Hare, B and Koler-Matznick, J and Wrangham, R and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Breed differences in domestic dogs' (Canis familiaris)
comprehension of human communicative signals},
Journal = {Interaction Studies},
Volume = {10},
Number = {2},
Pages = {206-224},
Publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Company},
Editor = {Matsuzawa, T},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/is.10.2.06wob},
Abstract = {Recent research suggests that some human-like social skills
evolved in dogs (Canis familiaris) during domestication as
an incidental by-product of selection for "tame" forms of
behavior. It is still possible, however, that the social
skills of certain dog breeds came under direct selection
that led to further increases in social problem solving
ability. To test this hypothesis, different breeds of
domestic dogs were compared for their ability to use various
human communicative behaviors to find hidden food. We found
that even primitive breeds with little human contact were
able to use communicative cues. Further, "working" dogs
(shepherds and huskies: thought to be bred intentionally to
respond to human cooperative communicative signals) were
more skilled at using gestural cues than were non-working
breeds (basenji and toy poodles: not thought to have been
bred for their cooperative-communicative ability). This
difference in performance existed regardless of whether the
working breeds were more or less genetically wolf-like.
These results suggest that subsequent to initial
domesticating selection giving rise to cue-following skills,
additional selection on communicative abilities in certain
breeds has produced substantive differences in those breeds'
abilities to follow cues. © John Benjamins Publishing
Company.},
Doi = {10.1075/is.10.2.06wob},
Key = {fds320801}
}
@article{fds351784,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Society need not be selfish},
Journal = {Nature},
Volume = {461},
Number = {7260},
Pages = {41},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/461041a},
Doi = {10.1038/461041a},
Key = {fds351784}
}
@article{fds351785,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Varieties of altruism in children and chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {13},
Number = {9},
Pages = {397-402},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.008},
Abstract = {Recent empirical research has shed new light on the
perennial question of human altruism. A number of recent
studies suggest that from very early in ontogeny young
children have a biological predisposition to help others
achieve their goals, to share resources with others and to
inform others of things helpfully. Humans' nearest primate
relatives, such as chimpanzees, engage in some but not all
of these behaviors: they help others instrumentally, but
they are not so inclined to share resources altruistically
and they do not inform others of things helpfully. The
evolutionary roots of human altruism thus appear to be much
more complex than previously supposed.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.008},
Key = {fds351785}
}
@article{fds351786,
Author = {Grassmann, S and Stracke, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds exclude novel objects as potential referents
of novel words based on pragmatics.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {112},
Number = {3},
Pages = {488-493},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.010},
Abstract = {Many studies have established that children tend to exclude
objects for which they already have a name as potential
referents of novel words. In the current study we asked
whether this exclusion can be triggered by social-pragmatic
context alone without pre-existing words as blockers.
Two-year-old children watched an adult looking at a novel
object while saying a novel word with excitement. In one
condition the adult had not seen the object beforehand, and
so the children interpreted the adult's utterance as
referring to the gazed-at object. In another condition the
adult and child had previously played jointly with the
gazed-at object. In this case, children less often assumed
that the adult was referring to the object but rather they
searched for an alternative referent--presumably because
they inferred that the gazed-at object was old news in their
common ground with the adult and so not worthy of excited
labeling. Since this inference based on exclusion is highly
similar to that underlying the Principle of Contrast/Mutual
Exclusivity, we propose that this principle is not purely
lexical but rather is based on children's understanding of
how and why people direct one another's attention to things
either with or without language.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.010},
Key = {fds351786}
}
@article{fds351787,
Author = {Krachun, C and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Can chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) discriminate appearance
from reality?},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {112},
Number = {3},
Pages = {435-450},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.012},
Abstract = {A milestone in human development is coming to recognize that
how something looks is not necessarily how it is. We tested
appearance-reality understanding in chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes) with a task requiring them to choose between a
small grape and a big grape. The apparent relative size of
the grapes was reversed using magnifying and minimizing
lenses so that the truly bigger grape appeared to be the
smaller one. Our Lens test involved a basic component
adapted from standard procedures for children, as well as
several components designed to rule out alternative
explanations. There were large individual differences in
performance, with some chimpanzees' responses suggesting
they appreciated the appearance-reality distinction. In
contrast, all chimpanzees failed a Reverse Contingency
control test, indicating that those who passed the Lens test
did not do so by learning a simple reverse contingency rule.
Four-year-old children given an adapted version of the Lens
test failed it while 4.5-year-olds passed. Our study
constitutes the first direct investigation of
appearance-reality understanding in chimpanzees and the
first cross-species comparison of this capacity.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2009.06.012},
Key = {fds351787}
}
@article{fds351788,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Kaminski, J},
Title = {Behavior. Like infant, like dog.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {325},
Number = {5945},
Pages = {1213-1214},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1179670},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1179670},
Key = {fds351788}
}
@article{fds351789,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do great apes use emotional expressions to infer
desires?},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {12},
Number = {5},
Pages = {688-698},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00802.x},
Abstract = {Although apes understand others' goals and perceptions,
little is known about their understanding of others'
emotional expressions. We conducted three studies following
the general paradigm of Repacholi and colleagues (1997,
1998). In Study 1, a human reacted emotionally to the hidden
contents of two boxes, after which the ape was allowed to
choose one of the boxes. Apes distinguished between two of
the expressed emotions (happiness and disgust) by choosing
appropriately. In Studies 2 and 3, a human reacted either
positively or negatively to the hidden contents of two
containers; then the ape saw him eating something. When
given a choice, apes correctly chose the container to which
the human had reacted negatively, based on the inference
that the human had just eaten the food to which he had
reacted positively - and so the other container still had
food left in it. These findings suggest that great apes
understand both the directedness and the valence of some
human emotional expressions, and can use this understanding
to infer desires.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00802.x},
Key = {fds351789}
}
@article{fds351790,
Author = {Gräfenhain, M and Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of joint commitments.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {45},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1430-1443},
Year = {2009},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016122},
Abstract = {When adults make a joint commitment to act together, they
feel an obligation to their partner. In 2 studies, the
authors investigated whether young children also understand
joint commitments to act together. In the first study, when
an adult orchestrated with the child a joint commitment to
play a game together and then broke off from their joint
activity, 3-year-olds (n = 24) reacted to the break
significantly more often (e.g., by trying to re-engage her
or waiting for her to restart playing) than when she simply
joined the child's individual activity unbidden.
Two-year-olds (n = 24) did not differentiate between these 2
situations. In the second study, 3- and 4-year-old children
(n = 30 at each age) were enticed away from their activity
with an adult. Children acknowledged their leaving (e.g., by
looking to the adult or handing her the object they had been
playing with) significantly more often when they had made a
joint commitment to act together than when they had not. By
3 years of age, children thus recognize both when an adult
is committed and when they themselves are committed to a
joint activity.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0016122},
Key = {fds351790}
}
@article{fds351791,
Author = {Brandt, S and Kidd, E and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The discourse bases of relativization: An investigation of
young German and English-speaking children's comprehension
of relative clauses},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {20},
Number = {3},
Pages = {539-570},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.024},
Abstract = {In numerous comprehension studies, across different
languages, children have performed worse on object relatives
(e.g., the dog that the cat chased) than on subject
relatives (e.g., the dog that chased the cat). One possible
reason for this is that the test sentences did not exactly
match the kinds of object relatives that children typically
experience. Adults and children usually hear and produce
object relatives with inanimate heads and pronominal
subjects (e.g., the car that we bought last year) (cf. Kidd
et al., Language and Cognitive Processes 22: 860-897, 2007).
We tested young 3-year old German- and English-speaking
children with a referential selection task. Children from
both language groups performed best in the condition where
the experimenter described inanimate referents with object
relatives that contained pronominal subjects (e.g., Can you
give me the sweater that he bought?). Importantly, when the
object relatives met the constraints identified in spoken
discourse, children understood them as well as subject
relatives, or even better. These results speak against a
purely structural explanation for children's difficulty with
object relatives as observed in previous studies, but rather
support the usage-based account, according to which
discourse function and experience with language shape the
representation of linguistic structures. © 2009 by Walter
de Gruyter GmbH.},
Doi = {10.1515/COGL.2009.024},
Key = {fds351791}
}
@article{fds351792,
Author = {Kirjavainen, M and Theakston, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {'I want hold Postman Pat': An investigation into the
acquisition of infinitival marker 'to'},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {29},
Number = {3},
Pages = {313-339},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142723709105312},
Abstract = {Infinitival-to omission errors (e.g., *I want hold Postman
Pat) are produced by many English-speaking children early in
development. This article aims to explain these omissions by
investigating the emergence of infinitival-to, and its
production/omission in obligatory contexts. A series of
corpus analyses were conducted on the naturalistic data from
one to 13 children between the ages of approximately 2;0 and
3;1 testing three hypotheses from two theoretical
viewpoints. The data suggest that the errors are associated
with different verb sequences (e.g., going-to and going-X)
and their frequencies in the language to which children are
exposed. The article concludes that these constructions
compete for output when children are producing those verbs
and that this supports the usage-based/constructivist
account of the omission errors. Copyright © 2009 The
Author(s).},
Doi = {10.1177/0142723709105312},
Key = {fds351792}
}
@article{fds351793,
Author = {Matthews, D and Lieven, E and Theakston, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Pronoun co-referencing errors: Challenges for generativist
and usage-based accounts},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {20},
Number = {3},
Pages = {599-626},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.026},
Abstract = {This study tests accounts of co-reference errors whereby
children allow "Mama Bear" and "her" to co-refer in
sentences like "Mama Bear is washing her" (Chien and Wexler,
Language Acquisition 1: 225-295, 1990). 63 children aged
4;6, 5;6 and 6;6 participated in a truth-value judgment task
augmented with a sentence production component. There were
three major finding: 1) contrary to predictions of most
generativist accounts, children accepted co-reference even
in cases of bound anaphora e.g., "Every girl is washing her"
2) contrary to Thornton and Wexler (Principle B, VP Ellipsis
and Interpretation in Child Grammar, The MIT Press, 1999),
errors did not appear to occur because children understood
referring expressions to be denoting the same person in
different guises 3) contrary to usage-based accounts, errors
were less likely in sentences that contained lower as
opposed to higher frequency verbs. Error rates also differed
significantly according to pronoun type ("him", "her",
"them"). These challenging results are discussed in terms of
possible processing explanations. © 2009 by Walter de
Gruyter GmbH.},
Doi = {10.1515/COGL.2009.026},
Key = {fds351793}
}
@article{fds351794,
Author = {Lieven, E and Salomo, D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-old children's production of multiword utterances:
A usage-based analysis},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {20},
Number = {3},
Pages = {481-507},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.022},
Abstract = {Children generate novel utterances from the outset of
multiword speech. In this study, we apply a usage-based
method called 'traceback' to the multiword utterances of
four two-year-olds to see how closely related these
utterances are to their previous utterances. Data was
collected from the age of 2;0 until 6 weeks later on a
relatively dense sampling schedule. We attempted to match
each novel multiword utterance in a two-hour corpus to
lexical strings and schemas that the child had said before.
Matches were found for between 78-92 percent of all
multiword utterances. Between 62-91 percent of the slots in
schemas created by these tracebacks were for referring
expressions and were filled with nouns or noun phrases. For
one child, recording continued throughout his third year and
we compared his data at MLUs matched with the other three
children to investigate developmental changes. We found
that, with increasing MLU, and developmentally, children
were less repetitive within sessions, the tracebacks
required a wider range of semantic slots and the material
placed in these slots increased in complexity. © 2009 by
Walter de Gruyter GmbH.},
Doi = {10.1515/COGL.2009.022},
Key = {fds351794}
}
@article{fds351795,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The roots of human altruism.},
Journal = {British journal of psychology (London, England :
1953)},
Volume = {100},
Number = {Pt 3},
Pages = {455-471},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/000712608x379061},
Abstract = {Human infants as young as 14 to 18 months of age help others
attain their goals, for example, by helping them to fetch
out-of-reach objects or opening cabinets for them. They do
this irrespective of any reward from adults (indeed external
rewards undermine the tendency), and very likely with no
concern for such things as reciprocation and reputation,
which serve to maintain altruism in older children and
adults. Humans' nearest primate relatives, chimpanzees, also
help others instrumentally without concrete rewards. These
results suggest that human infants are naturally altruistic,
and as ontogeny proceeds and they must deal more
independently with a wider range of social contexts,
socialization and feedback from social interactions with
others become important mediators of these initial
altruistic tendencies.},
Doi = {10.1348/000712608x379061},
Key = {fds351795}
}
@article{fds351796,
Author = {Tennie, C and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Ratcheting up the ratchet: on the evolution of cumulative
culture.},
Journal = {Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Series B, Biological sciences},
Volume = {364},
Number = {1528},
Pages = {2405-2415},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0052},
Abstract = {Some researchers have claimed that chimpanzee and human
culture rest on homologous cognitive and learning
mechanisms. While clearly there are some homologous
mechanisms, we argue here that there are some different
mechanisms at work as well. Chimpanzee cultural traditions
represent behavioural biases of different populations, all
within the species' existing cognitive repertoire (what we
call the 'zone of latent solutions') that are generated by
founder effects, individual learning and mostly
product-oriented (rather than process-oriented) copying.
Human culture, in contrast, has the distinctive
characteristic that it accumulates modifications over time
(what we call the 'ratchet effect'). This difference results
from the facts that (i) human social learning is more
oriented towards process than product and (ii) unique forms
of human cooperation lead to active teaching, social
motivations for conformity and normative sanctions against
non-conformity. Together, these unique processes of social
learning and cooperation lead to humans' unique form of
cumulative cultural evolution.},
Doi = {10.1098/rstb.2009.0052},
Key = {fds351796}
}
@article{fds351797,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding
in an active helping paradigm.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {112},
Number = {2},
Pages = {337-342},
Year = {2009},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2009.05.006},
Abstract = {Recently, several studies have claimed that soon after their
first birthday infants understand others' false beliefs.
However, some have questioned these findings based on
criticisms of the looking-time paradigms used. Here we
report a new paradigm to test false belief understanding in
infants using a more active behavioral response: helping.
Specifically, the task was for infants to help an adult
achieve his goal - but to determine that goal infants had to
take into account what the adult believed (i.e., whether or
not he falsely believed there was a toy inside a box).
Results showed that by 18 months of age infants successfully
took into account the adult's belief in the process of
attempting to determine his goal. Results for 16-month-olds
were in the same direction but less clear. These results
represent by far the youngest age of false belief
understanding in a task with an active behavioral
measure.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2009.05.006},
Key = {fds351797}
}
@article{fds351798,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic dogs are sensitive to a human's
perspective},
Journal = {Behaviour},
Volume = {146},
Number = {7},
Pages = {979-998},
Year = {2009},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853908X395530},
Abstract = {We investigated dogs' ability to take the visual perspective
of humans. In the main study, each of two toys was placed on
the dog's side of two small barriers (one opaque, one
transparent). In experimental conditions, a human sat on the
opposite side of the barriers, such that she could see only
the toy behind the transparent barrier. The experimenter
then told the dog to 'Bring it here!' (without designating
either toy in any way). In the Back Turned control E also
sat on the opposite side but with her back turned so that
she could see neither toy, and in the Same Side control she
sat on the same side as the dog such that she could see both
toys. When toys were differentiable dogs approached the toy
behind the transparent barrier in experimental as compared
to back turned and same side condition. Dogs did not
differentiate between the two control conditions. In a
second study dogs were not sensitive to what a human had or
had not seen in the immediate past. These results suggest
that, even in the absence of overt behavioural cues, dogs
are sensitive to others visual access, even if that differs
from their own. © 2009 BRILL.},
Doi = {10.1163/156853908X395530},
Key = {fds351798}
}
@article{fds351799,
Author = {Krachun, C and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {A competitive nonverbal false belief task for children and
apes.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {12},
Number = {4},
Pages = {521-535},
Year = {2009},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00793.x},
Abstract = {A nonverbal false belief task was administered to children
(mean age 5 years) and two great ape species: chimpanzees
(Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). Because apes
typically perform poorly in cooperative contexts, our task
was competitive. Two versions were run: in both, a human
competitor witnessed an experimenter hide a reward in one of
two containers. When the competitor then left the room
(version A) or turned around (version B), the experimenter
switched the locations of the containers. The competitor
returned and reached with effort, but unsuccessfully,
towards the incorrect container. Children displayed an
understanding of the competitor's false belief by correctly
choosing the other container to find the reward. Apes did
not. However, in version A (but not version B), apes looked
more often at the unchosen container in false belief trials
than in true belief control trials, possibly indicating some
implicit or uncertain understanding that needs to be
investigated further.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00793.x},
Key = {fds351799}
}
@article{fds351800,
Author = {Matsui, T and Rakoczy, H and Miura, Y and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Understanding of speaker certainty and false-belief
reasoning: a comparison of Japanese and German
preschoolers.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {12},
Number = {4},
Pages = {602-613},
Year = {2009},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00812.x},
Abstract = {It has been repeatedly shown that when asked to identify a
protagonist's false belief on the basis of his false
statement, English-speaking 3-year-olds dismiss the
statement and fail to attribute to him a false belief. In
the present studies, we tested 3-year-old Japanese children
in a similar task, using false statements accompanied by
grammaticalized particles of speaker (un)certainty, as in
everyday Japanese utterances. The Japanese children were
directly compared with same-aged German children, whose
native language does not have grammaticalized epistemic
concepts. Japanese children profited from the explicit
statement of the protagonist's false belief when it was
marked with the attitude of certainty in a way that German
children did not - presumably because Japanese but not
German children must process such marking routinely in their
daily discourse. These results are discussed in the broader
context of linguistic and theory of mind
development.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00812.x},
Key = {fds351800}
}
@article{fds351801,
Author = {Wyman, E and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children understand multiple pretend identities in
their object play.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {27},
Number = {Pt 2},
Pages = {385-404},
Year = {2009},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151008x322893},
Abstract = {This set of studies examined the ability of 3-year-olds to
conceptualize multiple pretend identities with objects.
Rather than relying on verbal response measures, as has been
done in the past, children's creative and inferential
pretend actions were used as indicators of their
understanding. The common structure to all four studies was
that children were confronted with one pretend scenario,
moved to a second pretend scenario and then back again to
the first. Children proficiently tailored their pretence to
an object whose pretend identity changed between scenarios
despite being less able to name each identity. Thus, using
an inferential action methodology, these studies provide
early and particularly convincing evidence that children can
track the multiple pretend identities of
objects.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151008x322893},
Key = {fds351801}
}
@article{fds351802,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Brosche, N and Warneken, F and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young children's understanding of the context-relativity of
normative rules in conventional games.},
Journal = {The British journal of developmental psychology},
Volume = {27},
Number = {Pt 2},
Pages = {445-456},
Year = {2009},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151008x337752},
Abstract = {We investigated young children's awareness of the
context-relative rule structure of simple games. Two
contexts were established in the form of spatial locations.
Familiar objects were used in their conventional way at
location 1, but acquired specific functions in a rule game
at location 2. A third party then performed the conventional
act at either of the two locations, constituting a mistake
at location 2 (experimental condition), but appropriate at
location 1 (control condition). Three-year-olds (but not
2-year-olds) systematically distinguished the two
conditions, spontaneously intervening with normative protest
against the third party act in the experimental, but not in
the control condition. Young children thus understand
context-specific rules even when the context marking is
non-linguistic. These results are discussed in the broader
context of the development of social cognition and cultural
learning.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151008x337752},
Key = {fds351802}
}
@article{fds351803,
Author = {Chan, A and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children's understanding of the agent-patient relations in
the transitive construction: Cross-linguistic comparisons
between Cantonese, German, and English},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {20},
Number = {2},
Pages = {267-300},
Year = {2009},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2009.015},
Abstract = {Cantonese-, German-, and English-speaking children aged 2;6,
3,6, and 4,6 acted out transitive sentences containing novel
verbs in three conditions: (1) agent and patient were cued
redundantly by both word order and animacy; (2) agent and
patient were marked only with word order; and (3) agent and
patient were cued in conflicting ways with word order and
animacy. All three age groups in all three languages
comprehended the redundantly cued sentences. When word order
was the only cue, English children showed the earliest
comprehension at 2;6, then German, and then Cantonese
children at 3;6. When the cues conflicted, none of the 2;6
children in any language comprehended in adult-like ways,
whereas all of the children at 3;6 and 4;6 preferred word
order over animacy (but with some cross-linguistic
differences in performance as well). When animacy contrast
changed across sentence types, Cantonese children
comprehended the sentences differently at all three age
levels, German children did so at the two younger ages, and
English children only at the youngest age. The findings
correspond well with the informativeness of word order in
the three languages, suggesting that children's learning of
the syntactic marking of agent-patient relations is strongly
influenced by nature of the language they hear around them.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH.},
Doi = {10.1515/COGL.2009.015},
Key = {fds351803}
}
@article{fds351804,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Schäfer, M and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Prelinguistic infants, but not chimpanzees, communicate
about absent entities.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {20},
Number = {5},
Pages = {654-660},
Year = {2009},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02346.x},
Abstract = {One of the defining features of human language is
displacement, the ability to make reference to absent
entities. Here we show that prelinguistic, 12-month-old
infants already can use a nonverbal pointing gesture to make
reference to absent entities. We also show that
chimpanzees-who can point for things they want humans to
give them-do not point to refer to absent entities in the
same way. These results demonstrate that the ability to
communicate about absent but mutually known entities depends
not on language, but rather on deeper social-cognitive
skills that make acts of linguistic reference possible in
the first place. These nonlinguistic skills for displaced
reference emerged apparently only after humans' divergence
from great apes some 6 million years ago.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02346.x},
Key = {fds351804}
}
@article{fds351805,
Author = {Wyman, E and Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Normativity and context in young children's pretend
play},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {24},
Number = {2},
Pages = {146-155},
Year = {2009},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.01.003},
Abstract = {In two studies 3-year-olds' understanding of the
context-specificity of normative rules was investigated
through games of pretend play. In the first study, children
protested against a character who joined a pretend game but
treated the target object according to its real function.
However, they did not protest when she performed the same
action without having first joined the game. In the second
study, children protested when the character mixed up an
object's pretend identities between two different pretend
games. However, they did not protest when she performed the
same pretend action in its correct game context. Thus, the
studies show that young children see the pretence-reality
distinction, and the distinction between different pretence
identities, as normative. More generally, the results of
these studies demonstrate young children's ability to
enforce normative rules in their pretence and to do so
context-specifically. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.01.003},
Key = {fds351805}
}
@article{fds351806,
Author = {Vaish, A and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Sympathy through affective perspective taking and its
relation to prosocial behavior in toddlers.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {45},
Number = {2},
Pages = {534-543},
Year = {2009},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0014322},
Abstract = {In most research on the early ontogeny of sympathy, young
children are presented with an overtly distressed person and
their responses are observed. In the current study, the
authors asked whether young children could also sympathize
with a person to whom something negative had happened but
who was expressing no emotion at all. They showed 18- and
25-month-olds an adult either harming another adult by
destroying or taking away her possessions (harm condition)
or else doing something similar that did not harm her
(neutral condition). The "victim" expressed no emotions in
either condition. Nevertheless, in the harm as compared with
the neutral condition, children showed more concern and
subsequent prosocial behavior toward the victim. Moreover,
children's concerned looks during the harmful event were
positively correlated with their subsequent prosocial
behavior. Very young children can sympathize with a victim
even in the absence of overt emotional signals, possibly by
some form of affective perspective taking.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0014322},
Key = {fds351806}
}
@article{fds351807,
Author = {Colombi, C and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M and Young, G and Warneken, F and Rogers, SJ},
Title = {Examining correlates of cooperation in autism: Imitation,
joint attention, and understanding intentions.},
Journal = {Autism : the international journal of research and
practice},
Volume = {13},
Number = {2},
Pages = {143-163},
Year = {2009},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1362361308098514},
Abstract = {The goal of the current study was to examine the
contribution of three early social skills that may provide a
foundation for cooperative performance in autism: (1)
imitation, (2) joint attention, and (3) understanding of
other people's intentions regarding actions on objects.
Fourteen children with autistic disorder (AD) and 15
children with other developmental disabilities (DDs) matched
on non-verbal developmental age (AD, mean 27.7, SD 9.8; DD,
mean 33.4, SD 11.1) and verbal developmental age (AD, mean
21.5, SD 12.3; DD, mean 28.4, SD 11.0) participated in the
study. Children with autism showed poorer performance on
imitation and joint attention measures, but not on the
intentionality task. Multiple regression analyses showed
that imitation skills and joint attention contributed
independently to cooperation, above and beyond the
understanding of intentions of actions on
objects.},
Doi = {10.1177/1362361308098514},
Key = {fds351807}
}
@article{fds351808,
Author = {Liebal, K and Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Infants use shared experience to interpret pointing
gestures.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {12},
Number = {2},
Pages = {264-271},
Year = {2009},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00758.x},
Abstract = {We investigated whether 1-year-old infants use their shared
experience with an adult to determine the meaning of a
pointing gesture. In the first study, after two adults had
each shared a different activity with the infant, one of the
adults pointed to a target object. Eighteen- but not
14-month-olds responded appropriately to the pointing
gesture based on the particular activity they had previously
shared with that particular adult. In the second study,
14-month-olds were successful in a simpler procedure in
which the pointing adult either had or had not shared a
relevant activity with the infant prior to the pointing.
Infants just beginning to learn language thus already show a
complex understanding of the pragmatics of cooperative
communication in which shared experience with particular
individuals plays a crucial role.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00758.x},
Key = {fds351808}
}
@article{fds351809,
Author = {Kirschner, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Joint drumming: social context facilitates synchronization
in preschool children.},
Journal = {Journal of experimental child psychology},
Volume = {102},
Number = {3},
Pages = {299-314},
Year = {2009},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2008.07.005},
Abstract = {The human capacity to synchronize body movements to an
external acoustic beat enables uniquely human behaviors such
as music making and dancing. By hypothesis, these first
evolved in human cultures as fundamentally social
activities. We therefore hypothesized that children would
spontaneously synchronize their body movements to an
external beat at earlier ages and with higher accuracy if
the stimulus was presented in a social context. A total of
36 children in three age groups (2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 years)
were invited to drum along with either a human partner, a
drumming machine, or a drum sound coming from a speaker.
When drumming with a social partner, children as young as
2.5 years adjusted their drumming tempo to a beat outside
the range of their spontaneous motor tempo. Moreover,
children of all ages synchronized their drumming with higher
accuracy in the social condition. We argue that drumming
together with a social partner creates a shared
representation of the joint action task and/or elicits a
specific human motivation to synchronize movements during
joint rhythmic activity.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jecp.2008.07.005},
Key = {fds351809}
}
@article{fds351810,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Are apes inequity averse? New data on the token-exchange
paradigm.},
Journal = {American journal of primatology},
Volume = {71},
Number = {2},
Pages = {175-181},
Year = {2009},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20639},
Abstract = {Recent studies have produced mixed evidence about inequity
aversion in nonhuman primates. Brosnan et al. [Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological
Sciences 272:253-258, 2005] found inequity aversion in
chimpanzees and argued that effort is crucial, if subjects
are to evaluate how they are rewarded in comparison to a
competitor for an identical performance. In this study we
investigated inequity aversion with chimpanzees, bonobos and
orangutans, using the method of Brosnan et al. [Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological
Sciences 272:253-258, 2005] after introducing some
methodological improvements. Subjects always received a
less-preferred food in exchange for a token, whereas the
competitor received either the same type of food for their
token (equity) or a more favored food for it (inequity).
Apes did not refuse more of the less-preferred food when a
competitor had received the more favored food. Thus, with an
improved methodology we failed to reproduce the findings of
Brosnan et al. [Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.
Series B. Biological Sciences 272:253-258, 2005] that apes
show inequity aversion.},
Doi = {10.1002/ajp.20639},
Key = {fds351810}
}
@article{fds351812,
Author = {Gräfenhain, M and Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {One-year-olds' understanding of nonverbal gestures directed
to a third person},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {24},
Number = {1},
Pages = {23-33},
Year = {2009},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.10.001},
Abstract = {We investigated whether infants comprehend others' nonverbal
communicative intentions directed to a third person, in an
'overhearing' context. An experimenter addressed an
assistant and indicated a hidden toy's location by either
gazing ostensively or pointing to the location for her. In a
matched control condition, the experimenter performed
similar behaviors (absent-minded gazing and extended index
finger) but did not communicate ostensively with the
assistant. Infants could then search for the toy.
Eighteen-month-old infants were skillful in using both
communicative cues to find the hidden object, whereas
14-month-olds performed above chance only with the pointing
cue. Neither age group performed above chance in the control
condition. This study thus shows that by 14-18 months of
age, infants are beginning to monitor and comprehend some
aspects of third party interactions. © 2008 Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.10.001},
Key = {fds351812}
}
@article{fds351813,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's selective learning of rule games from
reliable and unreliable models},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {24},
Number = {1},
Pages = {61-69},
Year = {2009},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.07.004},
Abstract = {We investigated preschoolers' selective learning from models
that had previously appeared to be reliable or unreliable.
Replicating previous research, children from 4 years
selectively learned novel words from reliable over
unreliable speakers. Extending previous research, children
also selectively learned other kinds of acts - novel games -
from reliable actors. More important, - and novel to this
study, this selective learning was not just based on a
preference for one model or one kind of act, but had a
normative dimension to it. Children understood the way a
reliable actor demonstrated an act not only as the better
one, but as the normatively appropriate or correct one, as
indicated in both their explicit verbal comments and their
spontaneous normative interventions (e.g., protest,
critique) in response to third-party acts deviating from the
one demonstrated. These findings are discussed in the
broader context of the development of children's social
cognition and cultural learning. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.07.004},
Key = {fds351813}
}
@article{fds351814,
Author = {Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Infants appreciate the social intention behind a pointing
gesture: Commentary on "Children's understanding of
communicative intentions in the middle of the second year of
life" by T. Aureli, P. Perucchini and M.
Genco},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {24},
Number = {1},
Pages = {13-15},
Year = {2009},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.09.004},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2008.09.004},
Key = {fds351814}
}
@article{fds351815,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Brandt, S},
Title = {Flexibility in the semantics and syntax of children's early
verb use.},
Journal = {Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development},
Volume = {74},
Number = {2},
Pages = {113-126},
Year = {2009},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2009.00523.x},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1540-5834.2009.00523.x},
Key = {fds351815}
}
@article{fds351816,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Collective intentionality and cultural development},
Journal = {Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie},
Volume = {56},
Number = {3},
Pages = {401-410},
Year = {2008},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1524/dzph.2008.0031},
Doi = {10.1524/dzph.2008.0031},
Key = {fds351816}
}
@article{fds351817,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees know what others know, but not what they
believe.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {109},
Number = {2},
Pages = {224-234},
Year = {2008},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.08.010},
Abstract = {There is currently much controversy about which, if any,
mental states chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates
understand. In the current two studies we tested both
chimpanzees' and human children's understanding of both
knowledge-ignorance and false belief - in the same
experimental paradigm involving competition with a
conspecific. We found that whereas 6-year-old children
understood both of these mental states, chimpanzees
understood knowledge-ignorance but not false belief. After
ruling out various alternative explanations of these and
related findings, we conclude that in at least some
situations chimpanzees know what others know. Possible
explanations for their failure in the highly similar false
belief task are discussed.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2008.08.010},
Key = {fds351817}
}
@article{fds351818,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Extrinsic rewards undermine altruistic tendencies in
20-month-olds.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {44},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1785-1788},
Year = {2008},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0013860},
Abstract = {The current study investigated the influence of rewards on
very young children's helping behavior. After 20-month-old
infants received a material reward during a treatment phase,
they subsequently were less likely to engage in further
helping during a test phase as compared with infants who had
previously received social praise or no reward at all. This
so-called overjustification effect suggests that even the
earliest helping behaviors of young children are
intrinsically motivated and that socialization practices
involving extrinsic rewards can undermine this
tendency.},
Doi = {10.1037/a0013860},
Key = {fds351818}
}
@article{fds351819,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Assessing the validity of ape-human comparisons: a reply to
Boesch (2007).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {122},
Number = {4},
Pages = {449-452},
Year = {2008},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.122.4.449},
Abstract = {Boesch (2007) criticizes research comparing ape and human
cognition on the basis of both internal and external
validity. The authors show here that most of those
criticisms are not valid because: (i) most threats to
internal validity (e.g., conspecific experimenters for
humans but not apes) are controlled for experimentally; (ii)
externally, there is no empirical evidence that captive apes
have fewer cognitive skills than wild apes and indeed some
evidence (especially from human-raised apes) that they have
more; and (iii) externally, there is no empirical evidence
that Western middle-class children have different cognitive
skills from other children at very early ages in basic
cognitive domains. Although difficult, with appropriate
methodological care, experimental cross-species comparisons
may be validly made.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.122.4.449},
Key = {fds351819}
}
@article{fds351820,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Twelve-month-olds communicate helpfully and appropriately
for knowledgeable and ignorant partners.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {108},
Number = {3},
Pages = {732-739},
Year = {2008},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2008.06.013},
Abstract = {In the current study we investigated whether 12-month-old
infants gesture appropriately for knowledgeable versus
ignorant partners, in order to provide them with needed
information. In two experiments we found that in response to
a searching adult, 12-month-olds pointed more often to an
object whose location the adult did not know and thus needed
information to find (she had not seen it fall down just
previously) than to an object whose location she knew and
thus did not need information to find (she had watched it
fall down just previously). These results demonstrate that,
in contrast to classic views of infant communication,
infants' early pointing at 12 months is already premised on
an understanding of others' knowledge and ignorance, along
with a prosocial motive to help others by providing needed
information.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2008.06.013},
Key = {fds351820}
}
@article{fds351822,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Warneken, F},
Title = {Human behaviour: Share and share alike.},
Journal = {Nature},
Volume = {454},
Number = {7208},
Pages = {1057-1058},
Year = {2008},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/4541057a},
Doi = {10.1038/4541057a},
Key = {fds351822}
}
@article{fds351823,
Author = {Dabrowska, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Rapid learning of an abstract language-specific category:
Polish children's acquisition of the instrumental
construction.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {35},
Number = {3},
Pages = {533-558},
Year = {2008},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000908008660},
Abstract = {Rapid acquisition of linguistic categories or constructions
is sometimes regarded as evidence of innate knowledge. In
this paper, we examine Polish children's early understanding
of an idiosyncratic, language-specific construction
involving the instrumental case - which could not be due to
innate knowledge. Thirty Polish-speaking children aged 2 ; 6
and 3 ; 2 participated in a elicited production experiment
with novel verbs that were demonstrated as taking nouns in
the instrumental case as patients. Children heard the verbs
in sentences with either masculine or feminine nouns (which
take different endings in the instrumental case), and were
tested with new nouns of the same and of the opposite
gender. In both age groups, a substantial majority of
children succeeded in generalizing from one gendered form of
the instrumental case to the other (especially to the
masculine), thus indicating that they have some kind of
abstract understanding of the instrumental case in this
construction. This relatively early abstract knowledge of an
idiosyncratic construction casts doubt on the view that
early acquisition requires innate linguistic
knowledge.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000908008660},
Key = {fds351823}
}
@article{fds351824,
Author = {Dittmar, M and Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Young German children's early syntactic competence: a
preferential looking study.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {11},
Number = {4},
Pages = {575-582},
Year = {2008},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00703.x},
Abstract = {Using a preferential looking methodology with novel verbs,
Gertner, Fisher and Eisengart (2006) found that 21-month-old
English children seemed to understand the syntactic marking
of transitive word order in an abstract, verb-general way.
In the current study we tested whether young German children
of this same age have this same understanding. Following
Gertner et al. (2006), one group of German children was
tested only after they had received a training/practice
phase containing transitive sentences with familiar verbs
and the exact same nouns as those used at test. A second
group was tested after a training/practice phase consisting
only of familiar verbs, without the nouns used at test. Only
the group of children with the training on full transitive
sentences was successful in the test. These findings suggest
that for children this young to succeed in this test of
syntactic understanding, they must first have some kind of
relevant linguistic experience immediately prior to
testing--which raises the question of the nature of
children's linguistic representations at this early point in
development.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00703.x},
Key = {fds351824}
}
@article{fds351825,
Author = {Dittmar, M and Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {German children's comprehension of word order and case
marking in causative sentences.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {79},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1152-1167},
Year = {2008},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01181.x},
Abstract = {Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate
whether German children are able to use the grammatical cues
of word order and word endings (case markers) to identify
agents and patients in a causative sentence and whether they
weigh these two cues differently across development.
Two-year-olds correctly understood only sentences with both
cues supporting each other--the prototypical form.
Five-year-olds were able to use word order by itself but not
case markers. Only 7-year-olds behaved like adults by
relying on case markers over word order when the two cues
conflicted. These findings suggest that prototypical
instances of linguistic constructions with redundant
grammatical marking play a special role in early
acquisition, and only later do children isolate and weigh
individual grammatical cues appropriately.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01181.x},
Key = {fds351825}
}
@article{fds351826,
Author = {Chang, F and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Automatic evaluation of syntactic learners in
typologically-different languages},
Journal = {Cognitive Systems Research},
Volume = {9},
Number = {3},
Pages = {198-213},
Year = {2008},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2007.10.002},
Abstract = {Human syntax acquisition involves a system that can learn
constraints on possible word sequences in
typologically-different human languages. Evaluation of
computational syntax acquisition systems typically involves
theory-specific or language-specific assumptions that make
it difficult to compare results in multiple languages. To
address this problem, a bag-of-words incremental generation
(BIG) task with an automatic sentence prediction accuracy
(SPA) evaluation measure was developed. The BIG-SPA task was
used to test several learners that incorporated n-gram
statistics which are commonly found in statistical
approaches to syntax acquisition. In addition, a novel
Adjacency-Prominence learner, that was based on
psycholinguistic work in sentence production and syntax
acquisition, was also tested and it was found that this
learner yielded the best results in this task on these
languages. In general, the BIG-SPA task is argued to be a
useful platform for comparing explicit theories of syntax
acquisition in multiple languages. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All
rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogsys.2007.10.002},
Key = {fds351826}
}
@article{fds351827,
Author = {Tennie, C and Hedwig, D and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {An experimental study of nettle feeding in captive
gorillas.},
Journal = {American journal of primatology},
Volume = {70},
Number = {6},
Pages = {584-593},
Year = {2008},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20532},
Abstract = {Mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) in Karisoke,
Rwanda, feed on the stinging nettle Laportea alatipes by
means of elaborate processing skills. Byrne [e.g.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London,
Series B, Biological Sciences 358:529-536, 2003] has claimed
that individuals acquire these skills by means of the
so-called program-level imitation, in which the overall
sequence of problem-solving steps (not the precise actions)
is reproduced. In this study we present western lowland
gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) with highly similar
nettles. Twelve gorillas in three different groups
(including also one nettle-naïve gorilla) used the same
program-level technique as wild mountain gorillas (with
differences mainly on the action level). Chimpanzees,
orangutans, and bonobos did not show these program-level
patterns, nor did the gorillas when presented with a plant
similar in structural design but lacking stinging defenses.
We conclude that although certain aspects (i.e. single
actions) of this complex skill may be owing to social
learning, at the program level gorilla nettle feeding
derives mostly from genetic predispositions and individual
learning of plant affordances.},
Doi = {10.1002/ajp.20532},
Key = {fds351827}
}
@article{fds351828,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Rational tool use and tool choice in human infants and great
apes.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {79},
Number = {3},
Pages = {609-626},
Year = {2008},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01146.x},
Abstract = {G. Gergely, H. Bekkering, and I. Király (2002) showed that
14-month-old infants imitate rationally, copying an adult's
unusual action more often when it was freely chosen than
when it was forced by some constraint. This suggests that
infants understand others' intentions as rational choices of
action plans. It is important to test whether apes also
understand others' intentions in this way. In each of the
current 3 studies, a comparison group of 14-month-olds used
a tool more often when a demonstrator freely chose to use it
than when she had to use it, but apes generally used the
tool equally often in both conditions (orangutans were an
exception). Only some apes thus show an understanding of
others' intentions as rational choices of action
plans.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01146.x},
Key = {fds351828}
}
@article{fds351829,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years
later.},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {12},
Number = {5},
Pages = {187-192},
Year = {2008},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.010},
Abstract = {On the 30th anniversary of Premack and Woodruff's seminal
paper asking whether chimpanzees have a theory of mind, we
review recent evidence that suggests in many respects they
do, whereas in other respects they might not. Specifically,
there is solid evidence from several different experimental
paradigms that chimpanzees understand the goals and
intentions of others, as well as the perception and
knowledge of others. Nevertheless, despite several seemingly
valid attempts, there is currently no evidence that
chimpanzees understand false beliefs. Our conclusion for the
moment is, thus, that chimpanzees understand others in terms
of a perception-goal psychology, as opposed to a
full-fledged, human-like belief-desire psychology.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.010},
Key = {fds351829}
}
@article{fds351830,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The sources of normativity: young children's awareness of
the normative structure of games.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {44},
Number = {3},
Pages = {875-881},
Year = {2008},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.3.875},
Abstract = {In two studies, the authors investigated 2- and 3-year-old
children's awareness of the normative structure of
conventional games. In the target conditions, an
experimenter showed a child how to play a simple rule game.
After the child and the experimenter had played for a while,
a puppet came (controlled by a 2nd experimenter), asked to
join in, and then performed an action that constituted a
mistake in the game. In control conditions, the puppet
performed the exact same action as in the experimental
conditions, but the context was different such that this act
did not constitute a mistake. Children's normative responses
to the puppet's acts (e.g., protest, critique, or teaching)
were scored. Both age groups performed more normative
responses in the target than in the control conditions, but
the 3-year-olds did so on a more explicit level. These
studies demonstrate in a particularly strong way that even
very young children have some grasp of the normative
structure of conventional activities.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.44.3.875},
Key = {fds351830}
}
@article{fds351831,
Author = {Brandt, S and Diessel, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The acquisition of German relative clauses: a case
study.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {35},
Number = {2},
Pages = {325-348},
Year = {2008},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000907008379},
Abstract = {This paper investigates the development of relative clauses
in the speech of one German-speaking child aged 2 ; 0 to 5 ;
0. The earliest relative clauses we found in the data occur
in topicalization constructions that are only a little
different from simple sentences: they contain a single
proposition, express the actor prior to other participants,
assert new information and often occur with main-clause word
order. In the course of the development, more complex
relative constructions emerge, in which the relative clause
is embedded in a fully-fledged main clause. We argue that
German relative clauses develop in an incremental fashion
from simple non-embedded sentences that gradually evolve
into complex sentence constructions.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000907008379},
Key = {fds351831}
}
@article{fds351832,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Albrecht, K and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Infants' visual and auditory communication when a partner is
or is not visually attending.},
Journal = {Infant behavior & development},
Volume = {31},
Number = {2},
Pages = {157-167},
Year = {2008},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2007.10.011},
Abstract = {In the current study we investigated infants' communication
in the visual and auditory modalities as a function of the
recipient's visual attention. We elicited pointing at
interesting events from thirty-two 12-month olds and
thirty-two 18-month olds in two conditions: when the
recipient either was or was not visually attending to them
before and during the point. The main result was that
infants initiated more pointing when the recipient's visual
attention was on them than when it was not. In addition,
when the recipient did not respond by sharing interest in
the designated event, infants initiated more repairs
(repeated pointing) than when she did, again, especially
when the recipient was visually attending to them.
Interestingly, accompanying vocalizations were used
intentionally and increased in both experimental conditions
when the recipient did not share attention and interest.
However, there was little evidence that infants used their
vocalizations to direct attention to their gestures when the
recipient was not attending to them.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.infbeh.2007.10.011},
Key = {fds351832}
}
@article{fds351833,
Author = {Riedel, J and Schumann, K and Kaminski, J and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The early ontogeny of human-dog communication},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {75},
Number = {3},
Pages = {1003-1014},
Year = {2008},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.08.010},
Abstract = {Although dogs, Canis familiaris, are skilful at responding
to human social cues, the role of ontogeny in the
development of these abilities has not been systematically
examined. We studied the ability of very young dog puppies
to follow human communicative cues and successfully find
hidden food. In the first experiment we compared 6-, 8-, 16-
and 24-week-old puppies in their ability to use pointing
gestures or a marker as a cue. The results showed that
puppies, independent of age, could use all human
communicative cues provided; only their success at using the
marker cue increased with age. In the second and third
experiments we investigated the flexibility of the puppies'
understanding by reducing the degree to which they could use
local enhancement to solve these problems. Here, subjects
could not simply approach the hand of the experimenter and
follow its direction to the correct location because cups
were placed next to the dog instead of next to the
experimenter. Six-week-old puppies readily used all of the
human communicative cues provided. These findings support
the hypothesis that domestication played a critical role in
shaping the ability of dogs to follow human-given cues. ©
2007 The Association for the Study of Animal
Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.08.010},
Key = {fds351833}
}
@article{fds320803,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Call, J and Hernández-Lloreda, MV and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Response [3]},
Journal = {Science},
Volume = {319},
Number = {5863},
Pages = {569},
Year = {2008},
Month = {February},
Key = {fds320803}
}
@article{fds320804,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Call, J and Hernandez-Lloreda, MV and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Comparing social skills of children and apes -
Response},
Journal = {SCIENCE},
Volume = {319},
Number = {5863},
Pages = {570-570},
Publisher = {AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE},
Year = {2008},
Month = {February},
Key = {fds320804}
}
@article{fds351836,
Author = {Liebal, K and Colombi, C and Rogers, SJ and Warneken, F and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Helping and cooperation in children with
autism.},
Journal = {Journal of autism and developmental disorders},
Volume = {38},
Number = {2},
Pages = {224-238},
Year = {2008},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-007-0381-5},
Abstract = {Helping and cooperation are central to human social life.
Here, we report two studies investigating these social
behaviors in children with autism and children with
developmental delay. In the first study, both groups of
children helped the experimenter attain her goals. In the
second study, both groups of children cooperated with an
adult, but fewer children with autism performed the tasks
successfully. When the adult stopped interacting at a
certain moment, children with autism produced fewer attempts
to re-engage her, possibly indicating that they had not
formed a shared goal/shared intentions with her. These
results are discussed in terms of the prerequisite cognitive
and motivational skills and propensities underlying social
behavior.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10803-007-0381-5},
Key = {fds351836}
}
@article{fds351837,
Author = {Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Response [6]},
Journal = {Science},
Volume = {319},
Number = {5861},
Pages = {284},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
Key = {fds351837}
}
@article{fds320802,
Author = {Melis, AP and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do chimpanzees reciprocate received favours?},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {76},
Number = {3},
Pages = {951-962},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.05.014},
Abstract = {Reciprocal interactions observed in animals may persist
because individuals keep careful account of services
exchanged with each group member. To test whether
chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, possess the cognitive skills
required for this type of contingency-based reciprocity, we
gave chimpanzees the choice of cooperating with a
conspecific who had helped them previously or one who had
not helped them in two different experimental tasks. In the
first experiment, one of the partners preferentially
recruited the subjects to cooperate in a mutualistic task,
while the other potential partner never chose to cooperate
with the subject, but rather chose a different partner. In
the second experiment, one of the partners altruistically
helped the subjects to reach food, while the other partner
never helped the subject, but rather took the food himself.
In both experiments there was some evidence that the
chimpanzees increased the amount they cooperated with or
helped the partner who had been more helpful towards them
compared to their baseline behaviour towards the same
individual (or in a control condition). However, in both
experiments this effect was relatively weak and subjects did
not preferentially favour the individual who had favoured
them over the one who had not in either experiment. Although
taken together, these experiments provide some support for
the hypothesis that chimpanzees are capable of contingent
reciprocity, they also suggest that models of immediate
reciprocation and detailed accounts of recent exchanges
(e.g. Tit for Tat) may not play a large role in guiding the
social decisions of chimpanzees. © 2008 The Association for
the Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.05.014},
Key = {fds320802}
}
@article{fds351838,
Author = {Matthews, D and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Grammar},
Volume = {1-3},
Pages = {38-50},
Booktitle = {Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development,
Three-Volume Set},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
ISBN = {9780123704603},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-012370877-9.00073-6},
Abstract = {To acquire competence with a natural language, young
children must master the grammatical constructions of their
language(s). In this article we outline the main theoretical
issues in the field and trace the developmental path
children follow from talking in single-unit 'holophrases' to
using complex, abstract constructions. We describe the
development of children's initial skills with word order,
case marking, and morphology as abstract elements in early
constructions, and we discuss the level of abstraction
characteristic of young children's grammatical constructions
at different stages of development and in some different
languages of the world. Finally, we consider the learning
processes that enable young children both to acquire and to
abstract across grammatical constructions.},
Doi = {10.1016/B978-012370877-9.00073-6},
Key = {fds351838}
}
@article{fds351840,
Author = {Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Graded representations in the acquisition of English and
German transitive constructions},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {23},
Number = {1},
Pages = {48-66},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2007.11.002},
Abstract = {English and German children aged 2 years 4 months and 4
years heard both novel and familiar verbs in sentences whose
form was grammatical, but which mismatched the event they
were watching (e.g., 'The frog is pushing the lion', when
the lion was actually the 'agent' or 'doer' of the pushing).
These verbs were then elicited in new sentences. All
children mostly corrected the familiar verb (i.e., they used
the agent as the grammatical subject), but there were
cross-linguistic differences among the two-year-olds
concerning the novel verb. When English 2-year-olds used the
novel verb they mostly corrected. However, their most
frequent response was to avoid using the novel verb
altogether. German 2-year-olds corrected the novel verb
significantly more often than their English counterparts,
demonstrating more robust verb-general representations of
agent- and patient-marking. These findings provide support
for a 'graded representations' view of development, which
proposes that grammatical representations may be
simultaneously abstract but 'weak'. © 2007 Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2007.11.002},
Key = {fds351840}
}
@article{fds351841,
Author = {Moll, H and Richter, N and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Fourteen-month-olds know what "we" have shared in a special
way},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {13},
Number = {1},
Pages = {90-101},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15250000701779402},
Abstract = {People often express excitement to each other when
encountering an object that they have shared together
previously in some special way. This study investigated
whether 14-month-old infants know precisely what they have
and have not shared in a special way (and with whom). In the
experimental condition an adult and infant shared an object
(the target) excitedly because it unexpectedly reappeared in
several places. They then shared 2 other objects (the
distractors) in a more normal fashion. Later, the adult
reacted excitedly to a tray containing all 3 objects and
then made an ambiguous request for the infant to hand "it"
to her. There were 2 control conditions. In 1 of them, a
different adult, who knew none of the 3 objects, made the
ambiguous request. In the other control condition, the adult
who made the request had previously experienced the objects
only alone, while the infant looked on unengaged. Infants in
the experimental condition chose the target object more
often than the distractors and more often than they chose it
in either control condition. These results demonstrate that
14-month-old infants can identify which one of a set of
objects "we" - and not just I or you alone - have had a
special experience with in the past.},
Doi = {10.1080/15250000701779402},
Key = {fds351841}
}
@article{fds351842,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Behavioral cues that great apes use to forage for hidden
food.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {11},
Number = {1},
Pages = {117-128},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-007-0095-2},
Abstract = {We conducted three studies to examine whether the four great
ape species (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans)
are able to use behavioral experimenter-given cues in an
object-choice task. In the subsequent experimental
conditions subjects were presented with two eggs, one of
which contained food and the other did not. In Study 1 the
experimenter examined both eggs by smelling or shaking them,
but only made a failed attempt to open (via biting) the egg
containing food. In a control condition, the experimenter
examined and attempted to open both eggs, but in reverse
order to control for stimulus enhancement. The apes
significantly preferred the egg that was first examined and
then bitten, but had no preference in a baseline condition
in which there were no cues. In Study 2, we investigated
whether the apes could extend this ability to cues not
observed in apes so far (i.e., attempting to pull apart the
egg), as well as whether they made this discrimination based
on the function of the action the experimenter performed.
Subjects significantly preferred eggs presented with this
novel cue, but did not prefer eggs presented with a novel
but functionally irrelevant action. In Study 3, apes did not
interpret human actions as cues to food-location when they
already knew that the eggs were empty. Thus, great apes were
able to use a variety of experimenter-given cues associated
with foraging actions to locate hidden food and thereby were
partially sensitive to the general purpose underlying these
actions.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-007-0095-2},
Key = {fds351842}
}
@article{fds351843,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees do not take into account what others can hear in
a competitive situation.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {11},
Number = {1},
Pages = {175-178},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-007-0097-0},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) know what others can and
cannot see in a competitive situation. Does this reflect a
general understanding the perceptions of others? In a study
by Hare et al. (2000) pairs of chimpanzees competed over two
pieces of food. Subordinate individuals preferred to
approach food that was behind a barrier that the dominant
could not see, suggesting that chimpanzees can take the
visual perspective of others. We extended this paradigm to
the auditory modality to investigate whether chimpanzees are
sensitive to whether a competitor can hear food rewards
being hidden. Results suggested that the chimpanzees did not
take what the competitor had heard into account, despite
being able to locate the hiding place themselves by the
noise.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-007-0097-0},
Key = {fds351843}
}
@article{fds351844,
Author = {Tolar, TD and Lederberg, AR and Gokhale, S and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The development of the ability to recognize the meaning of
iconic signs.},
Journal = {Journal of deaf studies and deaf education},
Volume = {13},
Number = {2},
Pages = {225-240},
Year = {2008},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enm045},
Abstract = {Early developmental psychologists viewed iconic
representation as cognitively less complex than other forms
of symbolic thought. It is therefore surprising that iconic
signs are not acquired more easily than arbitrary signs by
young language learners. One explanation is that children
younger than 3 years have difficulty interpreting iconicity.
The current study assessed hearing children's ability to
interpret the meaning of iconic signs. Sixty-six 2.5- to
5-year-olds who had no previous exposure to signs were
required to match iconic signs to pictures of referents.
Whereas few of the 2.5-year-olds recognized the meaning of
the iconic signs consistently, more than half of the
3.0-year-olds and most of 3.5-year-olds performed above
chance. Thus, the ability to recognize the meaning of iconic
signs gradually develops during the preschool years.
Implications of these findings for sign language
development, receptive signed vocabulary tests, and the
development of the ability to interpret iconic symbols are
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1093/deafed/enm045},
Key = {fds351844}
}
@article{fds351845,
Author = {Moll, H and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Fourteen-month-olds know what others experience only in
joint engagement.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {10},
Number = {6},
Pages = {826-835},
Year = {2007},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00615.x},
Abstract = {We investigated how 14-month-old infants know what others
know. In two studies, an infant played with each of two
objects in turn while an experimenter was present. Then the
experimenter left the room, and the infant played with a
third object with an assistant. The experimenter returned,
faced all three objects, and said excitedly 'Look! Can you
give it to me?' In Study 1, the experimenter experienced
each of the first two toys in episodes of joint visual
engagement (without manipulation) with the infant. In
response to her excited request infants gave the
experimenter the object she did not know, thus demonstrating
that they knew which ones she knew. In Study 2, infants
witnessed the experimenter jointly engage around each of the
experienced toys with the assistant, from a third-person
perspective. In response to her request, infants did not
give the experimenter the object she had not experienced. In
combination with other studies, these results suggest that
to know what others have experienced 14-month-old infants
must do more than just perceive others perceiving something;
they must engage with them actively in joint
engagement.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00615.x},
Key = {fds351845}
}
@article{fds351846,
Author = {Matthews, D and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How toddlers and preschoolers learn to uniquely identify
referents for others: a training study.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {78},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1744-1759},
Year = {2007},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01098.x},
Abstract = {This training study investigates how children learn to refer
to things unambiguously. Two hundred twenty-four children
aged 2.6, 3.6, and 4.6 years were pre- and posttested for
their ability to request stickers from a dense array.
Between test sessions, children were assigned to a training
condition in which they (a) asked for stickers from an
adult, (b) responded to an adult's requests for stickers,
(c) observed 1 adult ask another for stickers, or (d) heard
model descriptions of stickers. All conditions yielded
improvements in referring strategies, with condition (a)
being most effective. Four-year-olds additionally
demonstrated learning effects in a transfer task. These
results suggest that young children's communication skills
develop best in response to feedback about their own
attempts at reference.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01098.x},
Key = {fds351846}
}
@article{fds351847,
Author = {Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees are rational maximizers in an ultimatum
game.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {318},
Number = {5847},
Pages = {107-109},
Year = {2007},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1145850},
Abstract = {Traditional models of economic decision-making assume that
people are self-interested rational maximizers. Empirical
research has demonstrated, however, that people will take
into account the interests of others and are sensitive to
norms of cooperation and fairness. In one of the most robust
tests of this finding, the ultimatum game, individuals will
reject a proposed division of a monetary windfall, at a cost
to themselves, if they perceive it as unfair. Here we show
that in an ultimatum game, humans' closest living relatives,
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), are rational maximizers and
are not sensitive to fairness. These results support the
hypothesis that other-regarding preferences and aversion to
inequitable outcomes, which play key roles in human social
organization, distinguish us from our closest living
relatives.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1145850},
Key = {fds351847}
}
@article{fds366597,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees really know what others can see in a competitive
situation.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {10},
Number = {4},
Pages = {439-448},
Year = {2007},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-007-0088-1},
Abstract = {Chimpanzee's perspective-taking abilities are currently
disputed. Here we show that in some food competition
contexts, subordinate chimpanzees do take the visual
perspective of dominant individuals, preferentially
targeting a hidden piece of the food that the dominant
cannot see over a piece that is visible to both individuals.
However, the space where the animals compete is critical in
determining whether subjects demonstrate this skill. We
suggest that competition intensity, as mediated by these
spatial factors, may play an important role in determining
the strategy chimpanzees utilize in competitive contexts.
Since some strategies may not require visual perspective
taking in order to be successful, chimpanzees may not always
demonstrate this skill. Differences in spatial arrangement
may therefore account for the conflicting results of past
studies.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-007-0088-1},
Key = {fds366597}
}
@article{fds320805,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Call, J and Hernàndez-Lloreda, MV and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Humans have evolved specialized skills of social cognition:
the cultural intelligence hypothesis.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {317},
Number = {5843},
Pages = {1360-1366},
Year = {2007},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1146282},
Abstract = {Humans have many cognitive skills not possessed by their
nearest primate relatives. The cultural intelligence
hypothesis argues that this is mainly due to a
species-specific set of social-cognitive skills, emerging
early in ontogeny, for participating and exchanging
knowledge in cultural groups. We tested this hypothesis by
giving a comprehensive battery of cognitive tests to large
numbers of two of humans' closest primate relatives,
chimpanzees and orangutans, as well as to 2.5-year-old human
children before literacy and schooling. Supporting the
cultural intelligence hypothesis and contradicting the
hypothesis that humans simply have more "general
intelligence," we found that the children and chimpanzees
had very similar cognitive skills for dealing with the
physical world but that the children had more sophisticated
cognitive skills than either of the ape species for dealing
with the social world.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1146282},
Key = {fds320805}
}
@article{fds351848,
Author = {Kidd, E and Brandt, S and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Object relatives made easy: A cross-linguistic comparison of
the constraints influencing young children's processing of
relative clauses},
Journal = {Language and Cognitive Processes},
Volume = {22},
Number = {6},
Pages = {860-897},
Year = {2007},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01690960601155284},
Abstract = {We present the results from four studies, two corpora and
two experimental, which suggest that English- and
German-speaking children (3;1-4;9 years) use multiple
constraints to process and produce object relative clauses.
Our two corpora studies show that children produce object
relatives that reflect the distributional and discourse
regularities of the input. Specifically, the results show
that when children produce object relatives they most often
do so with (a) an inanimate head noun, and (b) a pronominal
relative clause subject. Our experimental findings show that
children use these constraints to process and produce this
construction type. Moreover, when children were required to
repeat the object relatives they most often use in
naturalistic speech, the subject-object asymmetry in
processing of relative clauses disappeared. We also report
cross-linguistic differences in children's rate of
acquisition which reflect properties of the input language.
Overall, our results suggest that children are sensitive to
the same constraints on relative clause processing as
adults.},
Doi = {10.1080/01690960601155284},
Key = {fds351848}
}
@article{fds351849,
Author = {Grassmann, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds use primary sentence accent to learn new
words.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {34},
Number = {3},
Pages = {677-687},
Year = {2007},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000907008021},
Abstract = {German children aged 2;1 heard a sentence containing a nonce
noun and a nonce verb (Der Feks miekt). Either the noun or
the verb was prosodically highlighted by increased pitch,
duration and loudness. Independently, either the object or
the action in the ongoing referential scene was the new
element in the situation. Children learned the nonce noun
only when it was both highlighted prosodically and the
object in the scene was referentially new. They did not
learn the nonce verb in any condition. These results suggest
that from early in linguistic development, young children
understand that prosodic salience in a sentence indicates
referential newness.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000907008021},
Key = {fds351849}
}
@article{fds351850,
Author = {Jensen, K and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees are vengeful but not spiteful.},
Journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America},
Volume = {104},
Number = {32},
Pages = {13046-13050},
Year = {2007},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0705555104},
Abstract = {People are willing to punish others at a personal cost, and
this apparently antisocial tendency can stabilize
cooperation. What motivates humans to punish noncooperators
is likely a combination of aversion to both unfair outcomes
and unfair intentions. Here we report a pair of studies in
which captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) did not inflict
costs on conspecifics by knocking food away if the outcome
alone was personally disadvantageous but did retaliate
against conspecifics who actually stole the food from them.
Like humans, chimpanzees retaliate against personally
harmful actions, but unlike humans, they are indifferent to
simply personally disadvantageous outcomes and are therefore
not spiteful.},
Doi = {10.1073/pnas.0705555104},
Key = {fds351850}
}
@article{fds325191,
Author = {Warneken, F and Hare, B and Melis, AP and Hanus, D and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Spontaneous altruism by chimpanzees and young
children.},
Journal = {PLoS biology},
Volume = {5},
Number = {7},
Pages = {e184},
Year = {2007},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0050184},
Abstract = {People often act on behalf of others. They do so without
immediate personal gain, at cost to themselves, and even
toward unfamiliar individuals. Many researchers have claimed
that such altruism emanates from a species-unique psychology
not found in humans' closest living evolutionary relatives,
such as the chimpanzee. In favor of this view, the few
experimental studies on altruism in chimpanzees have
produced mostly negative results. In contrast, we report
experimental evidence that chimpanzees perform basic forms
of helping in the absence of rewards spontaneously and
repeatedly toward humans and conspecifics. In two
comparative studies, semi-free ranging chimpanzees helped an
unfamiliar human to the same degree as did human infants,
irrespective of being rewarded (experiment 1) or whether the
helping was costly (experiment 2). In a third study,
chimpanzees helped an unrelated conspecific gain access to
food in a novel situation that required subjects to use a
newly acquired skill on behalf of another individual. These
results indicate that chimpanzees share crucial aspects of
altruism with humans, suggesting that the roots of human
altruism may go deeper than previous experimental evidence
suggested.},
Doi = {10.1371/journal.pbio.0050184},
Key = {fds325191}
}
@article{fds351851,
Author = {Buttelmann, D and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Enculturated chimpanzees imitate rationally.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {10},
Number = {4},
Pages = {F31-F38},
Year = {2007},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00630.x},
Abstract = {Human infants imitate others' actions 'rationally': they
copy a demonstrator's action when that action is freely
chosen, but less when it is forced by some constraint
(Gergely, Bekkering & Király, 2002). We investigated
whether enculturated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) also
imitate rationally. Using Gergely and colleagues' (2002)
basic procedure, a human demonstrator operated each of six
apparatuses using an unusual body part (he pressed it with
his forehead or foot, or sat on it). In the Hands Free
condition he used this unusual means even though his hands
were free, suggesting a free choice. In the Hands Occupied
condition he used the unusual means only because his hands
were occupied, suggesting a constrained or forced choice.
Like human infants, chimpanzees imitated the modeled action
more often in the Hands Free than in the Hands Occupied
condition. Enculturated chimpanzees thus have some
understanding of the rationality of others' intentional
actions, and use this understanding when imitating
others.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00630.x},
Key = {fds351851}
}
@article{fds351852,
Author = {Okamoto-Barth, S and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Great apes' understanding of other individuals' line of
sight.},
Journal = {Psychological science},
Volume = {18},
Number = {5},
Pages = {462-468},
Year = {2007},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01922.x},
Abstract = {Previous research has shown that many social animals follow
the gaze of other individuals. However, knowledge about how
this skill differs between species and whether it shows a
relationship with genetic distance from humans is still
fragmentary. In the present study of gaze following in great
apes, we manipulated the nature of a visual obstruction and
the presence/absence of a target. We found that bonobos,
chimpanzees, and gorillas followed gaze significantly more
often when the obstruction had a window than when it did
not, just as human infants do. Additionally, bonobos and
chimpanzees looked at the experimenter's side of a
windowless obstruction more often than the other species.
Moreover, bonobos produced more double looks when the
barrier was opaque than when it had a window, indicating an
understanding of what other individuals see. The most
distant human relatives studied, orangutans, showed few
signs of understanding what another individual saw. Instead,
they were attracted to the target's location by the target's
presence, but not by the experimenter's gaze. Great apes'
perspective-taking skills seem to have increased in the
evolutionary lineage leading to bonobos, chimpanzees, and
humans.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01922.x},
Key = {fds351852}
}
@article{fds351853,
Author = {Matthews, D and Lieven, E and Theakston, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {French children's use and correction of weird word orders: a
constructivist account.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {34},
Number = {2},
Pages = {381-409},
Year = {2007},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s030500090600794x},
Abstract = {Using the weird word order methodology (Akhtar, 1999), we
investigated children's understanding of SVO word order in
French, a language with less consistent argument ordering
patterns than English. One hundred and twelve French
children (ages 2; 10 and 3; 9) heard either high or low
frequency verbs modelled in either SOV or VSO order (both
ungrammatical). Results showed that: (1) children were more
likely to adopt a weird word order if they heard lower
frequency verbs, suggesting gradual learning; (2) children
in the high frequency conditions tended to correct the
ungrammatical model they heard to the closest grammatical
alternative, suggesting different models activated different
grammatical schemas; and (3) children were less likely to
express the object of a transitive verb than were English
children in an equivalent study, suggesting object
expression is more difficult to master in French, perhaps
because of its inconsistency in the input. These findings
are discussed in the context of a usage-based model of
language acquisition.},
Doi = {10.1017/s030500090600794x},
Key = {fds351853}
}
@article{fds351854,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M and Liszkowski, U},
Title = {A new look at infant pointing.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {78},
Number = {3},
Pages = {705-722},
Year = {2007},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01025.x},
Abstract = {The current article proposes a new theory of infant pointing
involving multiple layers of intentionality and shared
intentionality. In the context of this theory, evidence is
presented for a rich interpretation of prelinguistic
communication, that is, one that posits that when
12-month-old infants point for an adult they are in some
sense trying to influence her mental states. Moreover,
evidence is also presented for a deeply social view in which
infant pointing is best understood--on many levels and in
many ways--as depending on uniquely human skills and
motivations for cooperation and shared intentionality (e.g.,
joint intentions and attention with others). Children's
early linguistic skills are built on this already existing
platform of prelinguistic communication.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01025.x},
Key = {fds351854}
}
@article{fds366598,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Behne, T and Moll,
H},
Title = {Understanding of intentions, shared intentions: The origins
of cultural thinking},
Journal = {Magyar Pszichologiai Szemle},
Volume = {62},
Number = {1},
Pages = {61-105},
Year = {2007},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/MPSzle.62.2007.1.4},
Abstract = {We propose that the crucial difference between human
cognition and that of other species is the ability to
participate with others in collaborative activities with
shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality.
Participation in such activities requires not only
especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural
learning, but also a unique motivation to share
psychological states with others and unique forms of
cognitive representation for doing so. The result of
participating in these activities is species-unique forms of
cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from
the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the
construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the
establishment of social institutions. In support of this
proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and
some children with autism) understand the basics of
intentional action, but they still do not participate in
activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared
intentionality). Human children's skills of shared
intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months
of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: 1. the
general ape line of understanding others as animate,
goal-directed, and intentional agents; and 2. a
species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and
activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is
children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive
representations, which enable them to participate in earnest
in the collectivity that is human cognition.},
Doi = {10.1556/MPSzle.62.2007.1.4},
Key = {fds366598}
}
@article{fds325192,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Hare, B and Lehmann, H and Call,
J},
Title = {Reliance on head versus eyes in the gaze following of great
apes and human infants: the cooperative eye
hypothesis.},
Journal = {Journal of human evolution},
Volume = {52},
Number = {3},
Pages = {314-320},
Year = {2007},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2006.10.001},
Abstract = {As compared with other primates, humans have especially
visible eyes (e.g., white sclera). One hypothesis is that
this feature of human eyes evolved to make it easier for
conspecifics to follow an individual's gaze direction in
close-range joint attentional and communicative
interactions, which would seem to imply especially
cooperative (mututalistic) conspecifics. In the current
study, we tested one aspect of this cooperative eye
hypothesis by comparing the gaze following behavior of great
apes to that of human infants. A human experimenter "looked"
to the ceiling either with his eyes only, head only (eyes
closed), both head and eyes, or neither. Great apes followed
gaze to the ceiling based mainly on the human's head
direction (although eye direction played some role as well).
In contrast, human infants relied almost exclusively on eye
direction in these same situations. These results
demonstrate that humans are especially reliant on eyes in
gaze following situations, and thus, suggest that eyes
evolved a new social function in human evolution, most
likely to support cooperative (mututalistic) social
interactions.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.jhevol.2006.10.001},
Key = {fds325192}
}
@article{fds351856,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Pointing out new news, old news, and absent referents at 12
months of age.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {10},
Number = {2},
Pages = {F1-F7},
Year = {2007},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00552.x},
Abstract = {There is currently controversy over the nature of
1-year-olds' social-cognitive understanding and motives. In
this study we investigated whether 12-month-old infants
point for others with an understanding of their knowledge
states and with a prosocial motive for sharing experiences
with them. Declarative pointing was elicited in four
conditions created by crossing two factors: an adult partner
(1) was already attending to the target event or not, and
(2) emoted positively or neutrally. Pointing was also coded
after the event had ceased. The findings suggest that
12-month-olds point to inform others of events they do not
know about, that they point to share an attitude about
mutually attended events others already know about, and that
they can point (already prelinguistically) to absent
referents. These findings provide strong support for a
mentalistic and prosocial interpretation of infants'
prelinguistic communication.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00552.x},
Key = {fds351856}
}
@article{fds351857,
Author = {Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How 14- and 18-month-olds know what others have
experienced.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {43},
Number = {2},
Pages = {309-317},
Year = {2007},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.2.309},
Abstract = {Fourteen- and 18-month-old infants observed an adult
experiencing each of 2 objects (experienced objects) and
then leaving the room; the infant then played with a 3rd
object while the adult was gone (unexperienced object). The
adult interacted with the 2 experienced objects in 1 of 3
ways: by (a) sharing them with the infant in an episode of
joint engagement, (b) actively manipulating and inspecting
them on his or her own as the infant watched (individual
engagement), or (c) looking at them from a distance as the
infant played with them (onlooking). As evidenced in a
selection task, infants of both ages knew which objects had
been experienced by the adult in the joint engagement
condition, only the 18-month-olds knew this in the
individual engagement condition, and infants at neither age
knew this in the onlooking condition. These results suggest
that infants are 1st able to determine what adults know
(have experienced) on the basis of their direct, triadic
engagements with them.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.43.2.309},
Key = {fds351857}
}
@article{fds351858,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Reference and attitude in infant pointing.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {34},
Number = {1},
Pages = {1-20},
Year = {2007},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000906007689},
Abstract = {We investigated two main components of infant declarative
pointing, reference and attitude, in two experiments with a
total of 106 preverbal infants at 1;0. When an experimenter
(E) responded to the declarative pointing of these infants
by attending to an incorrect referent (with positive
attitude), infants repeated pointing within trials to
redirect E's attention, showing an understanding of E's
reference and active message repair. In contrast, when E
identified infants' referent correctly but displayed a
disinterested attitude, infants did not repeat pointing
within trials and pointed overall in fewer trials, showing
an understanding of E's unenthusiastic attitude about the
referent. When E attended to infants' intended referent AND
shared interest in it, infants were most satisfied, showing
no message repair within trials and pointing overall in more
trials. These results suggest that by twelve months of age
infant declarative pointing is a full communicative act
aimed at sharing with others both attention to a referent
and a specific attitude about that referent.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000906007689},
Key = {fds351858}
}
@article{fds351859,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {"This way!", "No! That way!"-3-year olds know that two
people can have mutually incompatible desires},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {22},
Number = {1},
Pages = {47-68},
Year = {2007},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.08.002},
Abstract = {In theory of mind research, there is a long standing dispute
about whether children come to understand the subjectivity
of both desires and beliefs at the same time (around age 4),
or whether there is an asymmetry such that desires are
understood earlier. To address this issue, 3-year olds'
understanding of situations in which two persons have
mutually incompatible desires was tested in two studies.
Results revealed that (i) children were quite proficient at
ascribing incompatible desires to two persons, and in
simpler scenarios even incompatible desire-dependent
emotions; (ii) children showed this proficiency even though
they mostly failed the false belief task. Overall, these
results suggest that there is an asymmetry such that young
children come to understand the subjective nature of desires
before they understand the corresponding subjectivity of
beliefs. Possible explanations for this asymmetry are
discussed in light of conceptual change and
information-processing accounts of theory of mind
development. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.08.002},
Key = {fds351859}
}
@article{fds351860,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Helping and cooperation at 14 months of age},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {11},
Number = {3},
Pages = {271-294},
Year = {2007},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2007.tb00227.x},
Abstract = {Two experiments investigated the proclivity of 14-month-old
infants (a) to altruistically help others toward individual
goals, and (b) to cooperate toward a shared goal. The
infants helped another person by handing over objects the
other person was unsuccessfully roaching for, but did not
help reliably in situations involving more complex goals.
When a programmed adult partner interrupted a joint
cooperative activity at specific moments, infants sometimes
tried to reengage the adult, perhaps indicating that they
understood the interdependency of actions toward a shared
goal. However, as compared to 18- and 24-month-olds, their
skills in behaviorally coordinating their actions with a
social partner remained rudimentary. Results are integrated
into a model of cooperative activities as they develop over
the 2nd year of life. Copyright © 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1532-7078.2007.tb00227.x},
Key = {fds351860}
}
@article{fds351861,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M},
Title = {Shared intentionality.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {10},
Number = {1},
Pages = {121-125},
Year = {2007},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00573.x},
Abstract = {We argue for the importance of processes of shared
intentionality in children's early cognitive development. We
look briefly at four important social-cognitive skills and
how they are transformed by shared intentionality. In each
case, we look first at a kind of individualistic version of
the skill -- as exemplified most clearly in the behavior of
chimpanzees -- and then at a version based on shared
intentionality -- as exemplified most clearly in the
behavior of human 1- and 2-year-olds. We thus see the
following transformations: gaze following into joint
attention, social manipulation into cooperative
communication, group activity into collaboration, and social
learning into instructed learning. We conclude by
highlighting the role that shared intentionality may play in
integrating more biologically based and more culturally
based theories of human development.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00573.x},
Key = {fds351861}
}
@article{fds351862,
Author = {Schwier, C and van Maanen, C and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Rational imitation in 12-month-old infants},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {10},
Number = {3},
Pages = {303-311},
Year = {2006},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327078in1003_6},
Abstract = {Gergely, Bekkering, and Király (2002) demonstrated that
14-month-old infants engage in "rational imitation." To
investigate the development and flexibility of this skill,
we tested 12-month-olds on a different but analogous task.
Infants watched as an adult made a toy animal use a
particular action to get to an endpoint. In 1 condition
there was a barrier that prevented a more straightforward
action and so gave the actor no choice but to use the
demonstrated action. In the other condition there was no
barrier, so the actor had a free choice to use the
demonstrated action or not. Twelve-month-olds showed the
same pattern of results as in Gergely and colleagues' study:
They copied the particular action demonstrated more often
when the adult freely chose to use the action than when she
was forced to use it. Twelve-month-olds, too, thus show an
understanding of others' intentions as rational choices and
can use this understanding in cultural learning contexts.
Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/s15327078in1003_6},
Key = {fds351862}
}
@article{fds351863,
Author = {Tennie, C and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Push or pull: Imitation vs. emulation in great apes and
human children},
Journal = {Ethology},
Volume = {112},
Number = {12},
Pages = {1159-1169},
Year = {2006},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0310.2006.01269.x},
Abstract = {All four species of great apes and young human children
(12-24 mo of age) were administered an imitation task
designed to distinguish between results learning (emulation)
and action learning (imitation). Some subjects were exposed
to a demonstrator either pushing or pulling a door to open a
box, whereas others simply saw the door of the box opening
itself in one of the two directions (the ghost control).
Most of the apes successfully opened the box in both
experimental conditions, as well as in a baseline condition,
but without being influenced either by the demonstrator's
actions or by the door's motions. In contrast, human
children over 12 mo of age were influenced by the
demonstration: the 18-mo-olds were influenced by the
demonstrator's actions, and the 24-mo-olds were influenced
both by the demonstrator's actions and by the door's motions
in the ghost control. These results provide support for the
hypothesis that human children have a greater propensity
than great apes for focusing either on a demonstrator's
action or on the result of their action, as needed, in
social learning situations. © 2006 The Authors.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1439-0310.2006.01269.x},
Key = {fds351863}
}
@article{fds366599,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Are apes really inequity averse?},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {273},
Number = {1605},
Pages = {3123-3128},
Year = {2006},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3693},
Abstract = {Brosnan et al. (Brosnan, S. F. Schiff, H. C. & de Waal, F.
B. M. 2005 Tolerance for inequity may increase with social
closeness in chimpanzees. Proc. R. Soc. B272, 253-258) found
that chimpanzees showed increased levels of rejection for
less-preferred food when competitors received better food
than themselves and postulated as an explanation inequity
aversion. In the present study, we extended these findings
by adding important control conditions, and we investigated
whether inequity aversion could also be found in the other
great ape species and whether it would be influenced by
subjects' relationship with the competitor. In the present
study, subjects showed a pattern of food rejection opposite
to the subjects of the above study by Brosnan et al. (2005).
Our apes ignored fewer food pieces and stayed longer in
front of the experimenter when a conspecific received better
food than themselves. Moreover, chimpanzees begged more
vigorously when the conspecific got favoured food. The most
plausible explanation for these results is the food
expectation hypothesis - seeing another individual receive
high-quality food creates the expectation of receiving the
same food oneself - and not inequity aversion.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2006.3693},
Key = {fds366599}
}
@article{fds351864,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Goats' behaviour in a competitive food paradigm: Evidence
for perspective taking?},
Journal = {Behaviour},
Volume = {143},
Number = {11},
Pages = {1341-1356},
Year = {2006},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853906778987542},
Abstract = {Many mammalian species are highly social, creating
intra-group competition for such things as food and mates.
Recent research with nonhuman primates indicates that in
competitive situations individuals know what other
individuals can and cannot see, and they use this knowledge
to their advantage in various ways. In the current study, we
extended these findings to a non-primate species, the
domestic goat, using the conspecific competition paradigm
developed by Hare et al. (2000). Like chimpanzees and some
other nonhuman primates, goats live in fission-fusion
societies, form coalitions and alliances, and are known to
reconcile after fights. In the current study, a dominant and
a subordinate individual competed for food, but in some
cases the subordinate could see things that the dominant
could not. In the condition where dominants could only see
one piece of food but subordinates could see both,
subordinates' preferences depended on whether they received
aggression from the dominant animal during the experiment.
Subjects who received aggression preferred the hidden over
the visible piece of food, whereas subjects who never
received aggression significantly preferred the visible
piece. By using this strategy, goats who had not received
aggression got significantly more food than the other goats.
Such complex social interactions may be supported by
cognitive mechanisms similar to those of chimpanzees. We
discuss these results in the context of current issues in
mammalian cognition and socio-ecology. © Brill Academic
Publishers 2006.},
Doi = {10.1163/156853906778987542},
Key = {fds351864}
}
@article{fds351865,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds grasp the intentional structure of pretense
acts.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {9},
Number = {6},
Pages = {557-564},
Year = {2006},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00533.x},
Abstract = {Twenty-two- and 27-month-old children were tested for their
understanding of pretending as a specific intentional action
form. Pairs of superficially similar behaviors - pretending
to perform an action and trying to perform that action -
were demonstrated to children. The 27-month-olds, and to
some degree the 22-month-olds, showed in their responses
that they understood the intentional structure of both kinds
of behaviors: after pretense models, they themselves
performed appropriate inferential pretense acts, whereas
after the trying models they properly performed the action
or tried to perform it with novel means. These findings are
discussed in the light of recent debates about children's
developing understanding of pretense and theory of
mind.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00533.x},
Key = {fds351865}
}
@article{fds325195,
Author = {Hare, B and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees deceive a human competitor by
hiding.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {101},
Number = {3},
Pages = {495-514},
Year = {2006},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.011},
Abstract = {There is little experimental evidence that any non-human
species is capable of purposefully attempting to manipulate
the psychological states of others deceptively (e.g.,
manipulating what another sees). We show here that
chimpanzees, one of humans' two closest primate relatives,
sometimes attempt to actively conceal things from others.
Specifically, when competing with a human in three novel
tests, eight chimpanzees, from their first trials, chose to
approach a contested food item via a route hidden from the
human's view (sometimes using a circuitous path to do so).
These findings not only corroborate previous work showing
that chimpanzees know what others can and cannot see, but
also suggest that when competing for food chimpanzees are
skillful at manipulating, to their own advantage, whether
others can or cannot see them.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2005.01.011},
Key = {fds325195}
}
@article{fds351866,
Author = {Abbot-Smith, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Exemplar-learning and schematization in a usage-based
account of syntactic acquisition},
Journal = {Linguistic Review},
Volume = {23},
Number = {3},
Pages = {275-290},
Year = {2006},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/TLR.2006.011},
Abstract = {The early phases of syntactic acquisition are characterized
by many input frequency and item effects, which argue
against theories assuming innate access to classical
syntactic categories. In formulating an alternative view, we
consider both prototype and exemplar-learning models of
categorization. We argue for a 'hybrid' usage-based view in
which acquisition depends on exemplar learning and
retention, out of which permanent abstract schemas gradually
emerge and are immanent across the summed similarity of
exemplar collections. These schemas are graded in strength
depending on the number of exemplars and the degree to which
semantic similarity is reinforced by phonological, lexical,
and distributional similarity. © Walter de Gruyter
2006.},
Doi = {10.1515/TLR.2006.011},
Key = {fds351866}
}
@article{fds351867,
Author = {Moll, H and Koring, C and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Infants determine others' focus of attention by pragmatics
and exlusion},
Journal = {Journal of Cognition and Development},
Volume = {7},
Number = {3},
Pages = {411-430},
Year = {2006},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327647jcd0703_9},
Abstract = {In the studies presented here, infants' understanding of
others' attention was assessed when gaze direction cues were
not diagnostic. Fourteen-, 18- and 24-month-olds witnessed
an adult look to the side of an object and express
excitement. In 1 experimental condition this object was new
for the adult because she was not present while the child
and someone else played with it earlier. Children responded
to this as if they assumed that the adult was excited about
this new object as a whole. In the other condition the
object was one with which the infant and this adult had just
previously played for a minute. In this case children
appeared to assume that the adult could not be excited about
this object in itself. They responded either by attending to
a specific part of the object or, more frequently, by
looking around the room for another object. These results
suggest that 1-year-olds can determine what others are
attending to based on a pragmatic assessment of what is new
and what is old for them combined with a form of reasoning
by exclusion. Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/s15327647jcd0703_9},
Key = {fds351867}
}
@article{fds351868,
Author = {Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Level I perspective-taking at 24 months of
age},
Journal = {British Journal of Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {24},
Number = {3},
Pages = {603-613},
Year = {2006},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151005X55370},
Abstract = {The current study sought to determine the age at which
children first engage in Level I visual perspective-taking,
in which they understand that the content of what another
person sees in a situation may sometimes differ from what
they see. An adult entered the room searching for an object.
One candidate object was out in the open, whereas another
was visible for the child but behind an occluder from the
adults perspective. When asked to help the adult find the
sought-for object, 24-month-old children, but not
18-month-old children, handed him the occluded object
(whereas in a control condition they showed no preference
for the occluded toy). We argue that the performance of the
24-month-olds requires Level I visual perspective-taking
skills and that this is the youngest age at which these
skills have been demonstrated. © 2006 The British
Psychological Society.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151005X55370},
Key = {fds351868}
}
@article{fds351869,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Apes' and children's understanding of cooperative and
competitive motives in a communicative situation.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {9},
Number = {5},
Pages = {518-529},
Year = {2006},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00519.x},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus)
(Study 1) and 18- and 24-month-old human children (Study 2)
participated in a novel communicative task. A human
experimenter (E) hid food or a toy in one of two opaque
containers before gesturing towards the reward's location in
one of two ways. In the Informing condition, she attempted
to help the subject find the hidden object by simply
pointing to the correct container. In the Prohibiting
condition, E held out her arm toward the correct container
(palm out) and told the subject firmly 'Don't take this
one.' As in previous studies, the apes were at chance in the
Informing condition. However, they were above chance in the
new Prohibiting condition. Human 18-month-olds showed this
same pattern of results, whereas 24-month-olds showed the
opposite pattern: they were better in the Informing
condition than in the Prohibiting condition. In our
interpretation, success in the Prohibiting condition
requires subjects to understand E's goal toward them and
their behavior, and then to make an inference (she would
only prohibit if there were something good in there).
Success in the Informing condition requires subjects to
understand a cooperative communicative motive - which
apparently apes and young infants find difficult.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2006.00519.x},
Key = {fds351869}
}
@article{fds325194,
Author = {Melis, AP and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Engineering cooperation in chimpanzees: tolerance
constraints on cooperation},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {72},
Number = {2},
Pages = {275-286},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2006},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.09.018},
Abstract = {The cooperative abilities of captive chimpanzees, Pan
troglodytes, in experiments do not match the sophistication
that might be predicted based on their naturally occurring
cooperative behaviours. This discrepancy might partly be
because in previous experiments potential chimpanzee
cooperators were partnered without regard to their social
relationship. We investigated the ability of chimpanzee
dyads to solve a physical task cooperatively in relation to
their interindividual tolerance levels. Pairs that were most
capable of sharing food outside the test were also able to
cooperate spontaneously (by simultaneously pulling two
ropes) to obtain food. In contrast, pairs that were less
inclined to share food outside of the test were unlikely to
cooperate. Furthermore, previously successful subjects
stopped cooperating when paired with a less tolerant
partner, even when the food rewards were presented in a
dispersed and divisible form to reduce competition between
subjects. These results show that although chimpanzees are
capable of spontaneous cooperation in a novel instrumental
task, tolerance acts as a constraint on their ability to
solve such cooperative problems. This finding highlights the
importance of controlling such social constraints in future
experiments on chimpanzee cooperation, and suggests that the
evolution of human-like cooperative skills might have been
preceded by the evolution of a more egalitarian social
system and a more human-like temperament. © 2006 The
Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2005.09.018},
Key = {fds325194}
}
@article{fds351870,
Author = {Ambridge, B and Rowland, CF and Theakston, AL and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Comparing different accounts of inversion errors in
children's non-subject wh-questions: 'What experimental data
can tell us?'.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {33},
Number = {3},
Pages = {519-557},
Year = {2006},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000906007513},
Abstract = {This study investigated different accounts of children's
acquisition of non-subject wh-questions. Questions using
each of 4 wh-words (what, who, how and why), and 3
auxiliaries (BE, DO and CAN) in 3sg and 3pl form were
elicited from 28 children aged 3;6-4;6. Rates of
noninversion error (Who she is hitting?) were found not to
differ by wh-word, auxiliary or number alone, but by lexical
auxiliary subtype and by wh-word+lexical auxiliary
combination. This finding counts against simple rule-based
accounts of question acquisition that include no role for
the lexical subtype of the auxiliary, and suggests that
children may initially acquire wh-word + lexical auxiliary
combinations from the input. For DO questions,
auxiliary-doubling errors (What does she does like?) were
also observed, although previous research has found that
such errors are virtually non-existent for positive
questions. Possible reasons for this discrepancy are
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000906007513},
Key = {fds351870}
}
@article{fds351871,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Carpenter, M and Striano, T and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {12- and 18-month-olds point to provide information for
others},
Journal = {Journal of Cognition and Development},
Volume = {7},
Number = {2},
Pages = {173-187},
Year = {2006},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327647jcd0702_2},
Abstract = {Classically, infants are thought to point for 2 main
reasons: (a) They point imperatively when they want an adult
to do something for them (e.g., give them something;
"Juice!"), and (b) they point declaratively when they want
an adult to share attention with them to some interesting
event or object ("Look!"). Here we demonstrate the existence
of another motive for infants' early pointing gestures: to
inform another person of the location of an object that
person is searching for. This informative motive for
pointing suggests that from very early in ontogeny humans
conceive of others as intentional agents with informational
states and they have the motivation to provide such
information communicatively. Copyright © 2006, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/s15327647jcd0702_2},
Key = {fds351871}
}
@article{fds366600,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M and Striano, T},
Title = {The role of experience and discourse in children's
developing understanding of pretend play
actions},
Journal = {British Journal of Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {24},
Number = {2},
Pages = {305-335},
Year = {2006},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151005X36001},
Abstract = {The present work investigated the development of an explicit
understanding of pretend play actions. Study I revealed a
long décalage between earlier implicit understanding of
pretence as an intentional activity and a later more
explicit understanding. Study 2 was a training study. It
tested for two factors - systematic pretence experience and
explicit pretence discourse - that may be important in
development from early implicit to later explicit pretence
understanding. Two training groups of 3.5-year-old children
received the same pretence experiences involving systematic
contrasts between pretending, really performing and trying
to perform actions. In the 'explicit' group, these
experiences were talked about with explicit 'pretend to' and
'pretend that' language. In the 'implicit' group no such
discourse was used, but only implicit discourse in talking
about pretence versus real actions. The two training groups
were compared with a control group that received functional
play experience. After training, only the explicit group
showed improvement in their explicit pretence understanding.
In none of the groups was there any transfer to tasks
tapping mental state understanding, false belief (FB) and
appearance-reality, (A-R). The findings are discussed in the
context of current theories about the developmental
relations between pretence, discourse, and mental state
understanding. © 2006 The British Psychological
Society.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151005X36001},
Key = {fds366600}
}
@article{fds351873,
Author = {Melis, AP and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) conceal visual and auditory
information from others.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {120},
Number = {2},
Pages = {154-162},
Year = {2006},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.120.2.154},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) competed with a human for
food. The human sat inside a booth, with 1 piece of food to
her left and 1 to her right, which she could retract from
her chimpanzee competitor's reach as needed. In Experiment
1, chimpanzees could approach either side of the booth
unseen but then had to reach through 1 of 2 tunnels (1
clear, 1 opaque) for the food. In Experiment 2, both tunnels
were clear and the human was looking away, but 1 of the
tunnels made a loud noise when it was opened. Chimpanzees
preferentially reached through the opaque tunnel in the
first study and the silent tunnel in the second,
successfully concealing their taking of the food from the
human competitor in both cases. These results suggest that
chimpanzees can, in some circumstances, actively manipulate
the visual and auditory perception of others by concealing
information from them.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.120.2.154},
Key = {fds351873}
}
@article{fds351874,
Author = {Warneken, F and Chen, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cooperative activities in young children and
chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {77},
Number = {3},
Pages = {640-663},
Year = {2006},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00895.x},
Abstract = {Human children 18-24 months of age and 3 young chimpanzees
interacted in 4 cooperative activities with a human adult
partner. The human children successfully participated in
cooperative problem-solving activities and social games,
whereas the chimpanzees were uninterested in the social
games. As an experimental manipulation, in each task the
adult partner stopped participating at a specific point
during the activity. All children produced at least one
communicative attempt to reengage him, perhaps suggesting
that they were trying to reinstate a shared goal. No
chimpanzee ever made any communicative attempt to reengage
the partner. These results are interpreted as evidence for a
uniquely human form of cooperative activity involving shared
intentionality that emerges in the second year of
life.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00895.x},
Key = {fds351874}
}
@article{fds325193,
Author = {Jensen, K and Hare, B and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {What's in it for me? Self-regard precludes altruism and
spite in chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Proceedings. Biological sciences},
Volume = {273},
Number = {1589},
Pages = {1013-1021},
Year = {2006},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2005.3417},
Abstract = {Sensitivity to fairness may influence whether individuals
choose to engage in acts that are mutually beneficial,
selfish, altruistic, or spiteful. In a series of three
experiments, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) could pull a rope
to access out-of-reach food while concomitantly pulling
another piece of food further away. In the first study, they
could make a choice that solely benefited themselves
(selfishness), or both themselves and another chimpanzee
(mutualism). In the next two experiments, they could choose
between providing food solely for another chimpanzee
(altruism), or for neither while preventing the other
chimpanzee from receiving a benefit (spite). The main result
across all studies was that chimpanzees made their choices
based solely on personal gain, with no regard for the
outcomes of a conspecific. These results raise questions
about the origins of human cooperative behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1098/rspb.2005.3417},
Key = {fds325193}
}
@article{fds351875,
Author = {Ambridge, B and Theakston, AL and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The distributed learning effect for children's acquisition
of an abstract syntactic construction},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {21},
Number = {2},
Pages = {174-193},
Year = {2006},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.09.003},
Abstract = {In many cognitive domains, learning is more effective when
exemplars are distributed over a number of sessions than
when they are all presented within one session. The present
study investigated this distributed learning effect with
respect to English-speaking children's acquisition of a
complex grammatical construction. Forty-eight children aged
3;6-5;10 (Experiment 1) and 72 children aged 4;0-5;0
(Experiment 2) were given 10 exposures to the construction
all in one session (massed), or on a schedule of two trials
per day for 5 days (distributed-pairs), or one trial per day
for 10 days (distributed). Children in both the
distributed-pairs and distributed conditions learnt the
construction better than children in the massed condition,
as evidenced by productive use of this construction with a
verb that had not been presented during training.
Methodological and theoretical implications of this finding
are discussed, with particular reference to single-process
accounts of language acquisition. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.09.003},
Key = {fds351875}
}
@article{fds351876,
Author = {Kidd, E and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Examining the role of lexical frequency in the acquisition
and processing of sentential complements},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {21},
Number = {2},
Pages = {93-107},
Year = {2006},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.01.006},
Abstract = {We present empirical data showing that the relative
frequency with which a verb normally appears in a syntactic
construction predicts young children's ability to remember
and repeat sentences instantiating that construction.
Children aged 2;10-5;8 years were asked to repeat
grammatical and ungrammatical sentential complement
sentences (e.g., 'I think + S'). The sentences contained
complement-taking verbs (CTVs) used with differing
frequencies in children's natural speech. All children
repeated sentences containing high frequency CTVs (e.g.,
think) more accurately than those containing low frequency
CTVs (e.g., hear), and made more sophisticated corrections
to ungrammatical sentences containing high frequency CTVs.
The data suggest that, like adults, children are sensitive
to lexico-constructional collocations. The implications for
language acquisition are discussed. © 2006 Elsevier Inc.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.01.006},
Key = {fds351876}
}
@article{fds351877,
Author = {Herrmann, E and Melis, AP and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Apes' use of iconic cues in the object-choice
task.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {9},
Number = {2},
Pages = {118-130},
Year = {2006},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-005-0013-4},
Abstract = {In previous studies great apes have shown little ability to
locate hidden food using a physical marker placed by a human
directly on the target location. In this study, we
hypothesized that the perceptual similarity between an
iconic cue and the hidden reward (baited container) would
help apes to infer the location of the food. In the first
two experiments, we found that if an iconic cue is given in
addition to a spatial/indexical cue - e.g., picture or
replica of a banana placed on the target location - apes
(chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas) as a group
performed above chance. However, we also found in two
further experiments that when iconic cues were given on
their own without spatial/indexical information (iconic cue
held up by human with no diagnostic spatial/indexical
information), the apes were back to chance performance. Our
overall conclusion is that although iconic information helps
apes in the process of searching hidden food, the poor
performance found in the last two experiments is due to
apes' lack of understanding of the informative (cooperative)
communicative intention of the experimenter.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-005-0013-4},
Key = {fds351877}
}
@article{fds325196,
Author = {Melis, AP and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees recruit the best collaborators.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {311},
Number = {5765},
Pages = {1297-1300},
Year = {2006},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1123007},
Abstract = {Humans collaborate with non-kin in special ways, but the
evolutionary foundations of these collaborative skills
remain unclear. We presented chimpanzees with collaboration
problems in which they had to decide when to recruit a
partner and which potential partner to recruit. In an
initial study, individuals recruited a collaborator only
when solving the problem required collaboration. In a second
study, individuals recruited the more effective of two
partners on the basis of their experience with each of them
on a previous day. Therefore, recognizing when collaboration
is necessary and determining who is the best collaborative
partner are skills shared by both chimpanzees and humans, so
such skills may have been present in their common ancestor
before humans evolved their own complex forms of
collaboration.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1123007},
Key = {fds325196}
}
@article{fds351878,
Author = {Warneken, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Altruistic helping in human infants and young
chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {311},
Number = {5765},
Pages = {1301-1303},
Year = {2006},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1121448},
Abstract = {Human beings routinely help others to achieve their goals,
even when the helper receives no immediate benefit and the
person helped is a stranger. Such altruistic behaviors
(toward non-kin) are extremely rare evolutionarily, with
some theorists even proposing that they are uniquely human.
Here we show that human children as young as 18 months of
age (prelinguistic or just-linguistic) quite readily help
others to achieve their goals in a variety of different
situations. This requires both an understanding of others'
goals and an altruistic motivation to help. In addition, we
demonstrate similar though less robust skills and
motivations in three young chimpanzees.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1121448},
Key = {fds351878}
}
@article{fds351879,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Kaminski, J and Riedel, J and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Making inferences about the location of hidden food: social
dog, causal ape.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {120},
Number = {1},
Pages = {38-47},
Year = {2006},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.120.1.38},
Abstract = {Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and great apes from the
genus Pan were tested on a series of object choice tasks. In
each task, the location of hidden food was indicated for
subjects by some kind of communicative, behavioral, or
physical cue. On the basis of differences in the ecologies
of these 2 genera, as well as on previous research, the
authors hypothesized that dogs should be especially skillful
in using human communicative cues such as the pointing
gesture, whereas apes should be especially skillful in using
physical, causal cues such as food in a cup making noise
when it is shaken. The overall pattern of performance by the
2 genera strongly supported this social-dog, causal-ape
hypothesis. This result is discussed in terms of apes'
adaptations for complex, extractive foraging and dogs'
adaptations, during the domestication process, for
cooperative communication with humans.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.120.1.38},
Key = {fds351879}
}
@article{fds351872,
Author = {Matthews, D and Lieven, E and Theakston, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The effect of perceptual availability and prior discourse on
young children's use of referring expressions},
Journal = {Applied Psycholinguistics},
Volume = {27},
Number = {3},
Pages = {403-422},
Year = {2006},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0142716406060334},
Abstract = {Choosing appropriate referring expressions requires
assessing whether a referent is "available" to the addressee
either perceptually or through discourse. In Study 1, we
found that 3- and 4-year-olds, but not 2-year-olds, chose
different referring expressions (noun vs. pronoun) depending
on whether their addressee could see the intended referent
or not. In Study 2, in more neutral discourse contexts than
previous studies, we found that 3- and 4-year-olds clearly
differed in their use of referring expressions according to
whether their addressee had already mentioned a referent.
Moreover, 2-year-olds responded with more naming
constructions when the referent had not been mentioned
previously. This suggests that, despite early
social-cognitive developments, (a) it takes time to master
the given/new contrast linguistically, and (b) children
understand the contrast earlier based on discourse, rather
than perceptual context. © 2006 Cambridge University
Press.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0142716406060334},
Key = {fds351872}
}
@article{fds351880,
Author = {Liebal, K and Pika, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Gestural communication of orangutans (pongo
pygmaeus)},
Journal = {Gesture},
Volume = {6},
Number = {1},
Pages = {1-38},
Year = {2006},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.6.1.02lie},
Abstract = {This study represents a systematic investigation of the
communicative repertoire of Sumatran orangutans (Pongo
pygmaeus abelii), with a focus on intentional signals in two
groups of captive orangutans. The goal was to analyze the
signal repertoire with respect to (1) the number and
frequency of signals (gestures, facial expressions, and
actions), (2) the variability of individual repertoires as a
function of group, age class, and sex, and (3) the
flexibility of use in terms of ‘means-end dissociation’
and ‘audience effects’ and to interpret the findings in
terms of the ecology, social structure and socio-cognitive
skills of orangutans. The results show that orangutans use a
remarkable number of signals including tactile and visual
gestures as well as several more complex actions, though few
facial expressions and no auditory gestures were observed.
One third of signals were used within a play context,
followed by one fourth of interactions in the context of
ingestion. Although the repertoire included several visual
gestures, most of the signals produced were tactile gestures
and they were used particularly in the contexts of
affiliation and agonism, whereas visual gestures dominated
in the context of grooming, ingestion and sexual behavior.
Individual repertoires showed a remarkable degree of
variability as a function of age and group affiliation.
Orangutans used their signals flexibly in several functional
contexts and adjusted the signal they used depending on the
attentional state of the recipient, similar to findings of
other great ape species and gibbons. Thus, the communicative
behavior of orangutans is characterized by a variable and
flexible use of signals possibly reflecting their highly
variable social structure and their sophisticated
socio-cognitive skills, with the dominance of tactile
gestures corresponding to the arboreal nature of this
species. © 2006 John Benjamins Publishing
Company.},
Doi = {10.1075/gest.6.1.02lie},
Key = {fds351880}
}
@article{fds351881,
Author = {Riedel, J and Buttelmann, D and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use a physical marker to
locate hidden food.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {9},
Number = {1},
Pages = {27-35},
Year = {2006},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-005-0256-0},
Abstract = {Dogs can use the placement of an arbitrary marker to locate
hidden food in an object-choice situation. We tested
domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) in three studies aimed at
pinning down the relative contributions of the human's hand
and the marker itself. We baited one of two cups (outside of
the dogs' view) and gave the dog a communicative cue to find
the food. Study 1 systematically varied dogs' perceptual
access to the marker placing event, so that dogs saw either
the whole human, the hand only, the marker only, or nothing.
Follow-up trials investigated the effect of removing the
marker before the dog's choice. Dogs used the marker as a
communicative cue even when it had been removed prior to the
dog's choice and attached more importance to this cue than
to the hand that placed it although the presence of the hand
boosted performance when it appeared together with the
marker. Study 2 directly contrasted the importance of the
hand and the marker and revealed that the effect of the
marker diminished if it had been associated with both cups.
In contrast touching both cups with the hand had no effect
on performance. Study 3 investigated whether the means of
marker placement (intentional or accidental) had an effect
on dogs' choices. Results showed that dogs did not
differentiate intentional and accidental placing of the
marker. These results suggest that dogs use the marker as a
genuine communicative cue quite independently from the
experimenter's actions.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-005-0256-0},
Key = {fds351881}
}
@article{fds351882,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Beyond formalities: The case of language
acquisition},
Journal = {Linguistic Review},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2-4},
Pages = {183-197},
Year = {2005},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/tlir.2005.22.2-4.183},
Abstract = {Generative grammar retained from American structural
linguistics the 'formal' approach, which basically effaces
the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of grammar. This
creates serious problems for an account of language
acquisition, most especially the problem of how to link
universal grammar to some particular language (the linking
problem). Parameters do not help the situation, as they
depend on a prior linking of the lexical and functional
categories of a language to universal grammar. In contrast,
usage-based accounts of language acquisition do not posit an
innate universal grammar and so have no linking problem. And
if children's cognitive and social skills are conceptualized
in the right way, there is no poverty of the stimulus in
this approach either. In general, the only fully adequate
accounts of language acquisition are those that give a
prominent role to children's comprehension of communicative
function in everything from words to grammatical morphemes
to complex syntactic constructions. © Walter de
Gruyter.},
Doi = {10.1515/tlir.2005.22.2-4.183},
Key = {fds351882}
}
@article{fds351883,
Author = {Wittek, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {German-speaking children's productivity with syntactic
constructions and case morphology: Local cues act
locally},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {25},
Number = {1},
Pages = {103-125},
Year = {2005},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0142723705049120},
Abstract = {It has been proposed that children acquiring case-marking
languages might be quicker to acquire certain constructions
than children acquiring word order languages, because the
cues involved in grammatical morphology are more 'local',
whereas word order is an inherently distributed cue (Slobin,
1982). In the current studies using nonce nouns and verbs,
we establish that German-speaking children are not
productive with passive and active transitive sentence-level
constructions at an earlier age than English-speaking
children; the majority of children learning both languages
are not productive until after their third birthdays. In
contrast, in the second and third studies reported here, the
majority of German-speaking children were productive with
nominative and accusative case marking inside NPs before
their third birthdays - and these are of course the very
same case markers centrally involved in passive and active
transitive constructions. We conclude from these results
that, whereas for some functions mastering local cues is all
that is required, and this is fairly simple, in other cases,
such as the case marking involved in sentence-level
syntactic constructions, the mastery of local cues is only
one part of the process of forming complex analogical
relationships among utterances. Copyright © 2005 SAGE
Publications.},
Doi = {10.1177/0142723705049120},
Key = {fds351883}
}
@article{fds351884,
Author = {Diessel, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {A new look at the acquisition of relative
clauses},
Journal = {Language},
Volume = {81},
Number = {4},
Pages = {882-906},
Year = {2005},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lan.2005.0169},
Abstract = {This study reconsiders the acquisition of relative clauses
based on data from two sentence-repetition tasks. Using
materials modeled on the relative constructions of
spontaneous child speech, we asked four-year-old English-
and German-speaking children to repeat six different types
of relative clauses. Although English and German relative
clauses are structurally very different, the results were
similar across studies: intransitive subject relatives
caused fewer errors than transitive subject relatives and
direct object relatives, which in turn caused fewer errors
than indirect object relatives and oblique relatives;
finally, genitive relatives caused by far the most problems.
Challenging previous analyses in which the acquisition of
relative clauses has been explained by the varying distance
between filler and gap, we propose a multifactorial analysis
in which the acquisition process is determined primarily by
the similarity between the various types of relative clauses
and their relationship to simple sentences.},
Doi = {10.1353/lan.2005.0169},
Key = {fds351884}
}
@article{fds351885,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M and Striano, T},
Title = {Role reversal imitation and language in typically developing
infants and children with autism},
Journal = {Infancy},
Volume = {8},
Number = {3},
Pages = {253-278},
Year = {2005},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327078in0803_4},
Abstract = {Three types of role reversal imitation were investigated in
typically developing 12-and 18-month-old infants and in
children with autism and other developmental delays. Many
typically developing infants at both ages engaged in each of
the 2 types of dyadic, body-oriented role reversal
imitation: self-self reversals, in which the adult acted on
herself and the child then acted on himself, and other-other
reversals, in which the adult acted on the child and the
child then acted back on the adult. However, 12-month-olds
had more difficulty than 18-month-olds with triadic,
object-mediated role reversals involving interactions around
objects. There was little evidence of any type of role
reversal imitation in children with autism. Positive
relations were found between role reversal imitation and
various measures of language development for 18-month-olds
and children with autism. Copyright © 2005, Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/s15327078in0803_4},
Key = {fds351885}
}
@article{fds352506,
Author = {Riches, NG and Tomasello, M and Conti-Ramsden,
G},
Title = {Verb learning in children with SLI: frequency and spacing
effects.},
Journal = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research :
JSLHR},
Volume = {48},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1397-1411},
Year = {2005},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2005/097)},
Abstract = {<h4>Purpose</h4>This study explored the effect of frequency
(number of presentations), and spacing (period between
presentations) on verb learning in children with specific
language impairment (SLI). Children learn words more
efficiently when presentations are frequent and
appropriately spaced, and this study investigated whether
children with SLI likewise benefit. Given that these
children demonstrate greater frequency dependence and rapid
forgetting of recently acquired words, an investigation of
frequency and spacing in this population is especially
warranted.<h4>Method</h4>Twenty-four children with SLI (mean
age 5;6 [years;months]) and 24 language-matched control
children (mean age 3;4) were taught novel verbs during play
sessions. In a repeated measures design, 4 experimental
conditions combined frequency (12 or 18 presentations) and
spacing (all presentations in 1 session, or spread over 4
days). Comprehension and production probes were administered
after the final session and 1 week later.<h4>Results</h4>Although
the children with SLI benefited significantly from frequent
and widely spaced presentations, there were no significant
effect in the control group. The language-impaired children
showed rapid forgetting.<h4>Conclusions</h4>The frequency
and spacing of presentations crucially affect the verb
learning of children with SLI. A training regimen
characterized by appropriately spaced intervals and moderate
repetition will optimally benefit lexical
learning.},
Doi = {10.1044/1092-4388(2005/097)},
Key = {fds352506}
}
@article{fds351886,
Author = {Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {One-year-olds comprehend the communicative intentions behind
gestures in a hiding game.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {8},
Number = {6},
Pages = {492-499},
Year = {2005},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00440.x},
Abstract = {This study explored infants' ability to infer communicative
intent as expressed in non-linguistic gestures. Sixty
children aged 14, 18 and 24 months participated. In the
context of a hiding game, an adult indicated for the child
the location of a hidden toy by giving a communicative cue:
either pointing or ostensive gazing toward the container
containing the toy. To succeed in this task children had to
do more than just follow the point or gaze to the target
container. They also had to infer that the adult's behaviour
was relevant to the situation at hand - she wanted to inform
them that the toy was inside the container toward which she
gestured. Children at all three ages successfully used both
types of cues. We conclude that infants as young as 14
months of age can, in some situations, interpret an adult
behaviour as a relevant communicative act done for
them.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00440.x},
Key = {fds351886}
}
@article{fds351887,
Author = {Wittek, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's sensitivity to listener knowledge and
perceptual context in choosing referring
expressions},
Journal = {Applied Psycholinguistics},
Volume = {26},
Number = {4},
Pages = {541-558},
Year = {2005},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716405050290},
Abstract = {Speakers use different types of referring expressions
depending on what the listener knows or is attending to; for
example, they use pronouns for objects that are already
present in the immediate discourse or perceptual context. In
a first study we found that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children
are strongly influenced by their interlocutor's knowledge of
a referent as expressed in her immediately preceding
utterance. Specifically, when they are asked a question
about a target object ("Where is the broom?"), they tend to
use null references or pronouns to refer to that object ("On
the shelf" or "It's on the shelf"); in contrast, when they
are asked more general questions ("What do we need?") or
contrast questions ("Do we need a mop?") that reveal no
knowledge of the target object they tend to use lexical
nouns ("A broom" or "No, a broom"). In a second study we
found that children at around their second birthday are not
influenced by immediately preceding utterances in this same
way. Finally, in a third study we found that 2.5- and
3.5-year-old children's choice of referring expressions is
very little influenced by the physical arrangements of
objects in the perceptual context, whether it is absent or
needs to be distinguished from a close-by alternative, when
they request a target object from a silent adult. These
results are discussed in terms of children's emerging
understanding of the knowledge and attentional states and
other persons. © 2005 Cambridge University
Press.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0142716405050290},
Key = {fds351887}
}
@article{fds351888,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Behne, T and Moll,
H},
Title = {In search of the uniquely human},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {28},
Number = {5},
Pages = {721-727},
Year = {2005},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X05540123},
Abstract = {As Bruner so eloquently points out, and Gauvain echoes,
human beings are unique in their "locality." Individual
groups of humans develop their own unique ways of
symbolizing and doing things - and these can be very
different from the ways of other groups, even those living
quite nearby. Our attempt in the target article was to
propose a theory of the social-cognitive and
social-motivational bases of humans' ability and propensity
to live in this local, that is, this cultural, way - which
no other species does - focusing on such things as the
ability to collaborate and to create shared material and
symbolic artifacts. © 2005 Cambridge University
Press.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X05540123},
Key = {fds351888}
}
@article{fds351889,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Behne, T and Moll,
H},
Title = {Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of
cultural cognition.},
Journal = {The Behavioral and brain sciences},
Volume = {28},
Number = {5},
Pages = {675-691},
Year = {2005},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x05000129},
Abstract = {We propose that the crucial difference between human
cognition and that of other species is the ability to
participate with others in collaborative activities with
shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality.
Participation in such activities requires not only
especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural
learning, but also a unique motivation to share
psychological states with others and unique forms of
cognitive representation for doing so. The result of
participating in these activities is species-unique forms of
cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from
the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the
construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the
establishment of social institutions. In support of this
proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and
some children with autism) understand the basics of
intentional action, but they still do not participate in
activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared
intentionality). Human children's skills of shared
intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months
of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the
general ape line of understanding others as animate,
goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a
species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and
activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is
children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive
representations, which enable them to participate in earnest
in the collectivity that is human cognition.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x05000129},
Key = {fds351889}
}
@article{fds325197,
Author = {Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Human-like social skills in dogs?},
Journal = {Trends in cognitive sciences},
Volume = {9},
Number = {9},
Pages = {439-444},
Year = {2005},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.003},
Abstract = {Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social
and communicative behavior--even more so than our nearest
primate relatives. For example, they use human social and
communicative behavior (e.g. a pointing gesture) to find
hidden food, and they know what the human can and cannot see
in various situations. Recent comparisons between canid
species suggest that these unusual social skills have a
heritable component and initially evolved during
domestication as a result of selection on systems mediating
fear and aggression towards humans. Differences in
chimpanzee and human temperament suggest that a similar
process may have been an important catalyst leading to the
evolution of unusual social skills in our own species. The
study of convergent evolution provides an exciting
opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary
processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and
communication.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.003},
Key = {fds325197}
}
@article{fds351890,
Author = {Call, J and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Copying results and copying actions in the process of social
learning: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children
(Homo sapiens).},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {8},
Number = {3},
Pages = {151-163},
Year = {2005},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0237-8},
Abstract = {There is currently much debate about the nature of social
learning in chimpanzees. The main question is whether they
can copy others' actions, as opposed to reproducing the
environmental effects of these actions using their own
preexisting behavioral strategies. In the current study,
chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo
sapiens) were shown different demonstrations of how to open
a tube-in both cases by a conspecific. In different
experimental conditions, demonstrations consisted of (1)
action only (the actions necessary to open the tube without
actually opening it); (2) end state only (the open tube,
without showing any actions); (3) both of these components
(in a full demonstration); or (4) neither of these
components (in a baseline condition). In the first three
conditions subjects saw one of two different ways that the
tube could open (break in middle; caps off ends). Subjects'
behavior in each condition was assessed for how often they
opened the tube, how often they opened it in the same
location as the demonstrator, and how often they copied the
demonstrator's actions or style of opening the tube. Whereas
chimpanzees reproduced mainly the environmental results of
the demonstrations (emulation), human children often
reproduced the demonstrator's actions (imitation). Because
the procedure used was similar in many ways to the procedure
that Meltzoff (Dev Psych 31:1, 1995) used to study the
understanding of others' unfulfilled intentions, the
implications of these findings with regard to chimpanzees'
understanding of others' intentions are also
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-004-0237-8},
Key = {fds351890}
}
@article{fds351891,
Author = {Kemp, N and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's knowledge of the "determiner" and
"adjective" categories.},
Journal = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research :
JSLHR},
Volume = {48},
Number = {3},
Pages = {592-609},
Year = {2005},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2005/041)},
Abstract = {Children's understanding of the grammatical categories of
"determiner" and "adjective" was examined using 2 different
methodologies. In Experiment 1, children heard novel nouns
combined with either a or the. Few 2-year-olds, but nearly
all 3- and 4-year-olds, subsequently produced the novel
nouns with a different determiner from the modeled
combination. Experiment 2 used a priming methodology.
Children age 2, 3, 4, and 6 years repeated descriptions of
pictures, before describing target pictures themselves. When
the primes consisted of a varied determiner + noun, all age
groups produced more determiner + noun descriptions. When
the primes consisted of a determiner + adjective + noun,
2-year-olds showed no priming. Three- to 6-year-olds showed
item-specific priming, but only 6-year-olds (and to a
limited extent 4-year-olds) showed both item-specific and
structural priming. These results suggest that children
build an understanding of determiners and adjectives
gradually, perhaps from individual lexical items, over a
number of years, and that pragmatic correctness may be
attained particularly late.},
Doi = {10.1044/1092-4388(2005/041)},
Key = {fds351891}
}
@article{fds351892,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {All great ape species follow gaze to distant locations and
around barriers.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {119},
Number = {2},
Pages = {145-154},
Year = {2005},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.119.2.145},
Abstract = {Following the gaze direction of conspecifics is an adaptive
skill that enables individuals to obtain useful information
about the location of food, predators, and group mates. In
the current study, the authors compared the gaze-following
skills of all 4 great ape species. In the 1st experiment, a
human either looked to the ceiling or looked straight ahead.
Individuals from all species reliably followed the human's
gaze direction and sometimes even checked back when they
found no target. In a 2nd experiment, the human looked
behind some kind of barrier. Results showed that individuals
from all species reliably put themselves in places from
which they could see what the experimenter was looking at
behind the barrier. These results support the hypothesis
that great apes do not just orient to a target that another
is oriented to, but they actually attempt to take the visual
perspective of the other.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.119.2.145},
Key = {fds351892}
}
@article{fds351893,
Author = {Behne, T and Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Unwilling versus unable: infants' understanding of
intentional action.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {41},
Number = {2},
Pages = {328-337},
Year = {2005},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.2.328},
Abstract = {Infants experienced a female adult handling them toys.
Sometimes, however, the transaction failed, either because
the adult was in various ways unwilling to give the toy
(e.g., she teased the child with it or played with it
herself) or else because she was unable to give it (e.g.,
she accidentally dropped it). Infants at 9, 12, and 18
months of age reacted with more impatience (e.g., reaching,
looking away) when the adult was unwilling to give them the
toy than when she was simply unable to give it.
Six-month-olds, in contrast, showed no evidence of this
differentiation. Because infants' behavioral responses were
appropriately adapted to different kinds of intentional
actions, and because the adult's actions sometimes produced
results that did not match her goal (when having accidents
or failed attempts), these findings provide especially rich
evidence that infants first begin to understand
goal-directed action at around 9 months of
age.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.41.2.328},
Key = {fds351893}
}
@article{fds351894,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Riedel, J and Call, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic goats, Capra hircus, follow gaze direction and use
social cues in an object choice task},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {69},
Number = {1},
Pages = {11-18},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2004.05.008},
Abstract = {Gaze following is a basic social cognitive skill with many
potential benefits for animals that live in social groups.
At least five primate species are known to follow the gaze
of conspecifics, but there have been no studies on gaze
following in other mammals. We investigated whether domestic
goats can use the gaze direction of a conspecific as a cue
to find food. They were able to do this, at a level
comparable to that of primates. In a second experiment, we
tested goats' ability to use gaze and other communicative
cues given by a human in a so-called object choice
situation. An experimenter hid food out of sight of the
subject under one of two cups. After baiting the cup the
experimenter indicated the location of the food to the
subject by using different cues. The goats used
communicative cues (touching and pointing) but not gaze by
itself. Since domestic dogs are very skilled in this task,
whereas wolves are not, one hypothesis is that the use of
communicative cues in the object choice task is a
side-effect of domestication. © 2004 The Association for
the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2004.05.008},
Key = {fds351894}
}
@article{fds351895,
Author = {Matthews, D and Lieven, E and Theakston, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The role of frequency in the acquisition of English word
order},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {20},
Number = {1},
Pages = {121-136},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.08.001},
Abstract = {Akhtar [Akhtar, N. (1999). Acquiring basic word order:
Evidence for data-driven learning of syntactic structure.
Journal of Child Language, 26, 339-356] taught children
novel verbs in ungrammatical word orders. Her results
suggested that the acquisition of canonical word order is a
gradual, data-driven process. The current study adapted this
methodology, using English verbs of different frequencies,
to test whether children's use of word order as a
grammatical marker depends upon the frequency of the lexical
items being ordered. Ninety-six children in two age groups
(2;9 and 3;9) heard either high frequency, medium frequency
or low frequency verbs that were modeled in SOV order.
Children aged 2;9 who heard low frequency verbs were
significantly more likely to adopt the weird word order than
those who heard higher frequency verbs. Children aged 3;9
preferred to use SVO order regardless of verb frequency.
Furthermore, the younger children reverted to English word
order using more arguments as verb frequency increased and
used more pronouns than their older counterparts. This
suggests that the ability to use English word order develops
from lexically specific schemas formed around frequent,
distributionally regular items (e.g. verbs, pronouns) into
more abstract, productive schemas as experience of the
language is accrued. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.08.001},
Key = {fds351895}
}
@article{fds351896,
Author = {Pika, S and Liebal, K and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The gestural communication of apes},
Journal = {Gesture},
Volume = {5},
Number = {1-2},
Pages = {41-56},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.5.1-2.05pik},
Abstract = {Gestural communication of nonhuman primates may allow
insight into the evolutionary scenario of human
communication given the flexible use and learning of
gestures as opposed to vocalizations. This paper provides an
overview of the work on the gestural communication of apes
with the focus on their repertoire, learning mechanisms, and
the flexibility of gesture use during interactions with
conspecifics. Although there is a variation between the
species in the types and numbers of gestures performed, the
influence of ecology, social structure and cognitive skills
on their gestural repertoires is relatively restricted. As
opposed to humans, apes do not use their gestures
referentially nor do their gestures show the symbolic or
conventionalized features of human gestural communication.
However, since the gestural repertoires of apes are
characterized by a high degree of individual variability and
flexibility of use as opposed to their vocalizations it
seems plausible that the gestures were the modality within
which symbolic communication first evolved.},
Doi = {10.1075/gest.5.1-2.05pik},
Key = {fds351896}
}
@article{fds351897,
Author = {Diessel, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Particle placement in early child language: A multifactorial
analysis},
Journal = {Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory},
Volume = {1},
Number = {1},
Pages = {89-112},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cllt.2005.1.1.89},
Abstract = {Recent studies of the English verb particle construction
have shown that particle placement varies with a variety of
linguistic features, which seem to influence the speaker's
choice of a particular position. The current study
investigates whether children's use of the particle varies
with the same features as in adult language. Using corpus
data from two English-speaking children, we conducted a
multifactorial analysis of six linguistic variables that are
correlated with particle placement in adult language. Our
analysis reveals significant associations between the
position of the particle and two of the six variables, the
NP type of the direct object and the meaning of the
particle, suggesting that children as young as two years of
age process at least some of the features that motivate
particle placement in adult speakers. © Walter de
Gruyter.},
Doi = {10.1515/cllt.2005.1.1.89},
Key = {fds351897}
}
@article{fds351898,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Carpenter, M},
Title = {The emergence of social cognition in three young
chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development},
Volume = {70},
Number = {1},
Pages = {vii-132},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2005.00324.x},
Abstract = {We report a series of 10 studies on the social-cognitive
abilities of three young chimpanzees. The studies were all
ones previously conducted with human infants. The
chimpanzees were 1-5 years of age, had been raised mostly by
humans, and were tested mostly directly by a familiar human
experimenter. First, in a longitudinal investigation with
repeated measurements from a social-cognitive test battery,
the three young chimpanzees were similar in many ways to
human infants; the major difference was a total lack of
attempts to share attention with others either in joint
attentional interactions or through declarative gestures.
Second, in imitation-based tests of the understanding of
intentional action, the chimpanzees, like human infants,
showed an understanding of failed attempts and accidents;
but they did not pay attention to the behavioral style of
the actor or the actor's reasons for choosing a particular
behavioral means. Third, in tests of their understanding of
visual perception, the chimpanzees followed the gaze
direction of a human to an out-of-sight location behind a
barrier and gestured more to a human who could see them than
to one who could not; but they showed no understanding that
perceivers can focus their attention on one thing, or one
aspect of a thing, within their perceptual fields for a
reason. Finally, in tests of joint intentions and joint
attention, the chimpanzees showed no ability to either
reverse roles with a partner in a collaborative interaction
or to set up a joint attentional framework for understanding
the communicative intentions behind a pointing gesture.
Taken together, these findings support the idea that the
early ontogeny of human social cognition comprises two
distinct trajectories, each with its own evolutionary
history: one for understanding the basics of goal-directed
action and perception, common to all apes, and another for
sharing psychological states with others in collaborative
acts involving joint intentions and attention, unique to the
human species.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1540-5834.2005.00324.x},
Key = {fds351898}
}
@article{fds351899,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Twelve- and 18-month-olds copy actions in terms of
goals.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {8},
Number = {1},
Pages = {F13-F20},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00385.x},
Abstract = {In the context of an imitation game, 12- and 18-month-old
infants saw an adult do such things as make a toy mouse hop
across a mat (with sound effects). In one condition (House),
the adult ended by placing the mouse in a toy house, whereas
in another condition (No House) there was no house present
at the final location. Infants at both ages usually simply
put the mouse in the house (ignoring the hopping motion and
sound effects) in the House condition, presumably because
they interpreted the adult's action in terms of this final
goal and so ignored the behavioral means. In contrast,
infants copied the adult's action (both the hopping motion
and the sound effects) when no house was present, presumably
because here infants saw the action itself as the adult's
only goal. From very early, infants' social learning is
flexible: infants focus on and copy either the end or the
means of an adult action as required by the
context.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00385.x},
Key = {fds351899}
}
@article{fds351900,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M and Striano, T},
Title = {On tools and toys: how children learn to act on and pretend
with 'virgin objects'.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {8},
Number = {1},
Pages = {57-73},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00393.x},
Abstract = {The focus of the present study was the role of cultural
learning in infants' acquisition of pretense actions with
objects. In three studies, 18- and 24-month-olds (n = 64)
were presented with novel objects, and either pretense or
instrumental actions were demonstrated with these. When
children were then allowed to act upon the objects
themselves, qualitatively similar patterns of cultural
(imitative) learning both of pretend and of instrumental
actions were observed, suggesting that both types of actions
can be acquired in similar ways through processes of
cultural learning involving one or another form of
collective intentionality. However, both absolute imitation
rates and creativity were lower in pretense compared to
instrumental actions, suggesting that the collective
intentionality that constitutes pretense is especially
difficult for children to comprehend. An additional analysis
of children's gazes to the experimenter during their actions
revealed that 24-month-olds looked more often to the
experimenter during pretense actions than during
instrumental actions - suggesting that pretense is
culturally learned in a similar fashion as practical
actions, but that young children understand pretense as a
more inherently social, intersubjective activity.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00393.x},
Key = {fds351900}
}
@article{fds351901,
Author = {Pika, S and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Gestural communication in subadult bonobos (Pan paniscus):
repertoire and use.},
Journal = {American journal of primatology},
Volume = {65},
Number = {1},
Pages = {39-61},
Year = {2005},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20096},
Abstract = {This article aims to provide an inventory of the
communicative gestures used by bonobos (Pan paniscus), based
on observations of subadult bonobos and descriptions of
gestural signals and similar behaviors in wild and captive
bonobo groups. In addition, we focus on the underlying
processes of social cognition, including learning mechanisms
and flexibility of gesture use (such as adjustment to the
attentional state of the recipient). The subjects were seven
bonobos, aged 1-8 years, living in two different groups in
captivity. Twenty distinct gestures (one auditory, eight
tactile, and 11 visual) were recorded. We found individual
differences and similar degrees of concordance of the
gestural repertoires between and within groups, which
provide evidence that ontogenetic ritualization is the main
learning process involved. There is suggestive evidence,
however, that some form of social learning may be
responsible for the acquisition of special gestures.
Overall, the present study establishes that the gestural
repertoire of bonobos can be characterized as flexible and
adapted to various communicative circumstances, including
the attentional state of the recipient. Differences from and
similarities to the other African ape species are
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1002/ajp.20096},
Key = {fds351901}
}
@article{fds351902,
Author = {Namy, LL and Campbell, AL and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The changing role of iconicity in non-verbal symbol
learning: A U-shaped trajectory in the acquisition of
arbitrary gestures},
Journal = {Journal of Cognition and Development},
Volume = {5},
Number = {1},
Pages = {37-57},
Year = {2004},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327647jcd0501_3},
Abstract = {This article reports 2 experiments examining the changing
role of iconicity in symbol learning and its implications
regarding the mechanisms supporting symbol-to-referent
mapping. Experiment 1 compared 18- and 26-month-olds'
mapping of iconic gestures (e.g., hopping gesture for a
rabbit) vs. arbitrary gestures (e.g., dropping motion for a
rabbit). Experiment 2 replicated this comparison with
4-year-olds. All ages successfully mapped iconic gestures.
Eighteen-month-olds and 4-year-olds but not 26-month-olds
mapped arbitrary gestures, revealing a U-shaped
developmental function. These findings imply that (a) there
is no advantage for iconicity in early symbol learning and
(b) the range of symbols mapped becomes more restricted at
26 months, re-emerging more flexibly during the preschool
years. We argue that the decline in arbitrary gesture
learning is a function of developing appreciation of
communicative conventions. We propose that the re-emergence
of arbitrary gestures at 4 years is driven by a wider range
of symbolic experiences, and enhanced sensitivity to others'
communicative intent. Copyright © 2004, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/s15327647jcd0501_3},
Key = {fds351902}
}
@article{fds351903,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two hypotheses about primate cognition},
Journal = {Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie},
Volume = {52},
Number = {4},
Pages = {585-601},
Year = {2004},
Month = {December},
Key = {fds351903}
}
@article{fds351904,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {What kind of evidence could refute the UG hypothesis?:
Commentary on Wunderlich},
Journal = {Studies in Language},
Volume = {28},
Number = {3},
Pages = {642-645},
Year = {2004},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sl.28.3.13tom},
Doi = {10.1075/sl.28.3.13tom},
Key = {fds351904}
}
@article{fds351905,
Author = {Liebal, K and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Use of gesture sequences in chimpanzees.},
Journal = {American journal of primatology},
Volume = {64},
Number = {4},
Pages = {377-396},
Year = {2004},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.20087},
Abstract = {Gestural communication in a group of 19 captive chimpanzees
(Pan troglodytes) was observed, with particular attention
paid to gesture sequences (combinations). A complete
inventory of gesture sequences is reported. The majority of
these sequences were repetitions of the same gestures, which
were often tactile gestures and often occurred in play
contexts. Other sequences combined gestures within a
modality (visual, auditory, or tactile) or across
modalities. The emergence of gesture sequences was ascribed
to a recipient's lack of responsiveness rather than a
premeditated combination of gestures to increase the
efficiency of particular gestures. In terms of audience
effects, the chimpanzees were sensitive to the attentional
state of the recipient, and therefore used visually-based
gestures mostly when others were already attending, as
opposed to tactile gestures, which were used regardless of
whether the recipient was attending or not. However, the
chimpanzees did not use gesture sequences in which the first
gesture served to attract the recipient's visual attention
before they produced a second gesture that was
visually-based. Instead, they used other strategies, such as
locomoting in front of the recipient, before they produced a
visually-based gesture.},
Doi = {10.1002/ajp.20087},
Key = {fds351905}
}
@article{fds351906,
Author = {Maslen, RJC and Theakston, AL and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {A dense corpus study of past tense and plural
overregularization in English.},
Journal = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research :
JSLHR},
Volume = {47},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1319-1333},
Year = {2004},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2004/099)},
Abstract = {In the "blocking-and-retrieval-failure" account of
overregularization (OR; G. F. Marcus, 1995; G. F. Marcus et
al., 1992), the claim that a symbolic rule generates regular
inflection is founded on pervasively low past tense OR rates
and the lack of a substantive difference between past tense
and plural OR rates. Evidence of extended periods of OR in
the face of substantial correct input (M. Maratsos, 2000)
and of an initial period in which nouns are more likely to
be overregularized than verbs (V. A. Marchman, K. Plunkett,
& J. Goodman, 1997) casts doubt on the blocking account and
suggests instead an interplay between type and token
frequency effects that is more consistent with usage-based
approaches (e.g., J. Bybee, 1995; K. Köpcke, 1998; K.
Plunkett & V. Marchman, 1993). However, previous
naturalistic studies have been limited by data that account
for only 1-2% of child speech. The current study reports
analyses of verb and noun ORs in a dense naturalistic corpus
(1 child, 2;00.12-3;11.06 [years;months.days]) that captures
8-10% of child speech and input. The data show (a) a marked
difference in verb and noun OR rates; (b) evidence of a
relationship between relative regular/irregular type
frequencies and the onset and rate of past tense and plural
ORs; (c) substantial OR periods for some verbs and nouns
despite hundreds of correct tokens in child speech and
input; and (d) a strong negative correlation between input
token frequencies and OR rates for verbs and nouns. The
implications of these findings for blocking and other
accounts of OR are discussed.},
Doi = {10.1044/1092-4388(2004/099)},
Key = {fds351906}
}
@article{fds351907,
Author = {Bräuer, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Visual perspective taking in dogs (Canis familiaris) in the
presence of barriers},
Journal = {Applied Animal Behaviour Science},
Volume = {88},
Number = {3-4},
Pages = {299-317},
Year = {2004},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.03.004},
Abstract = {Previous studies have shown that dogs have developed a
special sensitivity to the communicative signals and
attentional states of humans. The aim of the current study
was to further investigate what dogs know about the visual
perception of humans and themselves. In the first two
experiments we investigated whether dogs were sensitive to
the properties of barriers as blocking the visual access of
humans. We presented dogs with a situation in which a human
forbade them to take a piece of food, but the type and
orientation of the barrier allowed the dog to take the food
undetected in some conditions. Dogs differentiated between
effective and ineffective barriers, based on their
orientation or the particular features of the barriers such
as size or the presence of window. In the third study we
investigated whether dogs know about what they themselves
have seen. We presented subjects with two boxes and placed
food in one of them. In the Seen condition the location of
the food was shown to the dogs while in the Unseen condition
dogs were prevented from seeing the destination of the food.
Before selecting one of the boxes by pressing a lever, dogs
had the opportunity to seek extra information regarding the
contents of the boxes, which would be particularly useful in
the condition in which they had not seen where the food was
hidden. Dogs rarely used the opportunity to seek information
about the contents of the box before making their choice in
any condition. Therefore, we found no evidence suggesting
that dogs have access to what they themselves have seen,
which contrasts with the positive evidence about visual
perspective taking in others from the first two experiments
and previous studies. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.applanim.2004.03.004},
Key = {fds351907}
}
@article{fds351908,
Author = {Kaminski, J and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Body orientation and face orientation: two factors
controlling apes' behavior from humans.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {7},
Number = {4},
Pages = {216-223},
Year = {2004},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0214-2},
Abstract = {A number of animal species have evolved the cognitive
ability to detect when they are being watched by other
individuals. Precisely what kind of information they use to
make this determination is unknown. There is particular
controversy in the case of the great apes because different
studies report conflicting results. In experiment 1, we
presented chimpanzees, orangutans, and bonobos with a
situation in which they had to request food from a human
observer who was in one of various attentional states. She
either stared at the ape, faced the ape with her eyes
closed, sat with her back towards the ape, or left the room.
In experiment 2, we systematically crossed the observer's
body and face orientation so that the observer could have
her body and/or face oriented either towards or away from
the subject. Results indicated that apes produced more
behaviors when they were being watched. They did this not
only on the basis of whether they could see the experimenter
as a whole, but they were sensitive to her body and face
orientation separately. These results suggest that body and
face orientation encode two different types of information.
Whereas face orientation encodes the observer's perceptual
access, body orientation encodes the observer's disposition
to transfer food. In contrast to the results on body and
face orientation, only two of the tested subjects responded
to the state of the observer's eyes.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-004-0214-2},
Key = {fds351908}
}
@article{fds351909,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {The role of humans in the cognitive development of apes
revisited.},
Journal = {Animal cognition},
Volume = {7},
Number = {4},
Pages = {213-215},
Year = {2004},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-004-0227-x},
Doi = {10.1007/s10071-004-0227-x},
Key = {fds351909}
}
@article{fds325198,
Author = {Call, J and Hare, B and Carpenter, M and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {'Unwilling' versus 'unable': chimpanzees' understanding of
human intentional action.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {7},
Number = {4},
Pages = {488-498},
Year = {2004},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00368.x},
Abstract = {Understanding the intentional actions of others is a
fundamental part of human social cognition and behavior. An
important question is therefore whether other animal
species, especially our nearest relatives the chimpanzees,
also understand the intentional actions of others. Here we
show that chimpanzees spontaneously (without training)
behave differently depending on whether a human is unwilling
or unable to give them food Chimpanzees produced more
behaviors and left the testing station earlier with an
unwilling compared to an unable (but willing) experimenter
These data together with other recent studies on
chimpanzees' knowledge about others' visual perception show
that chimpanzees know more about the intentional actions and
perceptions of others than previously demonstrated},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00368.x},
Key = {fds325198}
}
@article{fds325199,
Author = {Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzees are more skilful in competitive than in
cooperative cognitive tasks},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {68},
Number = {3},
Pages = {571-581},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2004},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.11.011},
Abstract = {In a series of four experiments, chimpanzees, Pan
troglodytes, were given two cognitive tasks, an object
choice task and a discrimination task (based on location),
each in the context of either cooperation or competition. In
both tasks chimpanzees performed more skilfully when
competing than when cooperating, with some evidence that
competition with conspecifics was especially facilitatory in
the discrimination location task. This is the first study to
demonstrate a facilitative cognitive effect for competition
in a single experimental paradigm. We suggest that
chimpanzee cognitive evolution is best understood in its
socioecological context. © 2004 The Association for the
Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All
rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.11.011},
Key = {fds325199}
}
@article{fds351910,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Syntax or semantics? Response to Lidz et
al.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {93},
Number = {2},
Pages = {139-140},
Year = {2004},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2003.09.015},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2003.09.015},
Key = {fds351910}
}
@article{fds351912,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The pragmatics of primate communication},
Journal = {Psychologie Francaise},
Volume = {49},
Number = {2},
Pages = {209-218},
Year = {2004},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psfr.2003.11.006},
Abstract = {Pragmatics is about how individuals use their inventory of
semiotic devices, the strategic choices they make, in
particular acts of communication. An interesting question is
the degree to which other animal species, especially our
nearest primate relatives, employ pragmatic strategies in
their vocal and gestural communication. Based on a review of
the evidence, it is concluded in this essay that primate
communication displays almost none of the pragmatic
dimensions that characterize human linguistic communication.
The most fundamental reason is that nonhuman animal
communication does not really take place on the mental or
intersubjective plane at all. It is directed at the behavior
and emotional states of others, not at their attentional or
mental states. © 2004 Publié par Elsvier SAS pour
Société française de psychologie.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.psfr.2003.11.006},
Key = {fds351912}
}
@article{fds351913,
Author = {Liszkowski, U and Carpenter, M and Henning, A and Striano, T and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and
interest.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {7},
Number = {3},
Pages = {297-307},
Year = {2004},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00349.x},
Abstract = {Infants point for various motives. Classically, one such
motive is declarative, to share attention and interest with
adults to events. Recently, some researchers have questioned
whether infants have this motivation. In the current study,
an adult reacted to 12-month-olds' pointing in different
ways, and infants' responses were observed. Results showed
that when the adult shared attention and interest (i.e
alternated gaze and emoted), infants pointed more frequently
across trials and tended to prolong each point--presumably
to prolong the satisfying interaction. However, when the
adult emoted to the infant alone or looked only to the
event, infants pointed less across trials and repeated
points more within trials--presumably in an attempt to
establish joint attention. Results suggest that
12-month-olds point declaratively and understand that others
have psychological states that can be directed and
shared.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00349.x},
Key = {fds351913}
}
@article{fds351914,
Author = {Rakoczy, H and Tomasello, M and Striano, T},
Title = {Young children know that trying is not pretending: a test of
the "behaving-as-if" construal of children's early concept
of pretense.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {40},
Number = {3},
Pages = {388-399},
Year = {2004},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.40.3.388},
Abstract = {In 3 studies, young children were tested for their
understanding of pretend actions. In Studies 1 and 2, pairs
of superficially similar behaviors were presented to 26- and
36-month-old children in an imitation game. In one case the
behavior was marked as trying (signs of effort), and in the
other case as pretending (signs of playfulness).
Three-year-olds, and to some degree 2-year-olds, performed
the real action themselves (or tried to really perform it)
after the trying model, whereas after the pretense model,
they only pretended. Study 3 ruled out a simple mimicking
explanation by showing that children not only imitated
differentially but responded differentially with appropriate
productive pretending to pretense models and with
appropriate productive tool use to trying models. The
findings of the 3 studies demonstrate that by 2 to 3 years
of age, children have a concept of pretense as a specific
type of intentional activity.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.40.3.388},
Key = {fds351914}
}
@article{fds351915,
Author = {Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Training 2;6-year-olds to produce the transitive
construction: the role of frequency, semantic similarity and
shared syntactic distribution.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {7},
Number = {1},
Pages = {48-55},
Year = {2004},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00322.x},
Abstract = {Childers and Tomasello (2001) found that training 2
1/2-year-olds on the English transitive construction greatly
improves their performance on a post-test in which they must
use novel verbs in that construction. In the current study,
we replicated Childers and Tomasello's finding, but using a
much lower frequency of transitive verbs and models in
training. We also used novel verbs that were of a different
semantic class to our training verbs, demonstrating that
semantic homogeneity is not crucial for generalization. We
also replicated the finding that 4-year-olds are
significantly more productive than 2 1/2-year-olds with the
transitive construction, with the new finding that this is
also true for verbs of emission. In addition, 'shared
syntactic distribution' of novel verb and training verbs was
found to have no observable effect on the number of 2
1/2-year-olds who were productive in the
post-test.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00322.x},
Key = {fds351915}
}
@article{fds351916,
Author = {Moll, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {12- and 18-month-old infants follow gaze to spaces behind
barriers.},
Journal = {Developmental science},
Volume = {7},
Number = {1},
Pages = {F1-F9},
Year = {2004},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00315.x},
Abstract = {Infants follow the gaze direction of others from the middle
of the first year of life. In attempting to determine how
infants understand the looking behavior of adults, a number
of recent studies have blocked the adult's line of sight in
some way (e.g. with a blindfold or with a barrier). In
contrast, in the current studies an adult looked behind a
barrier which blocked the child's line of sight. Using two
different control conditions and several different barrier
types, 12- and 18-month-old infants locomoted a short
distance in order to gain the proper viewing angle to follow
an experimenter's gaze to locations behind barriers. These
results demonstrate that, contra Butterworth, even
12-month-old infants can follow gaze to locations outside of
their current field of view. They also add to growing
evidence that 12-month-olds have some understanding of the
looking behaviors of others as an act of
seeing.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00315.x},
Key = {fds351916}
}
@article{fds351917,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Stahl, D},
Title = {Sampling children's spontaneous speech: How much is
enough?},
Journal = {Journal of Child Language},
Volume = {31},
Number = {1},
Pages = {101-121},
Year = {2004},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000903005944},
Abstract = {There has been relatively little discussion in the field of
child language acquisition about how best to sample from
children's spontaneous speech, particularly with regard to
quantitative issues. Here we provide quantitative
information designed to help researchers make decisions
about how best to sample children's speech for particular
research questions (and/or how confident to be in existing
analyses). We report theoretical analyses in which the major
parameters are: (1) the frequency with which a phenomenon
occurs in the real world, and (2) the temporal density with
which a researcher samples the child's speech. We look at
the influence of these two parameters in using spontaneous
speech samples to estimate such things as: (a) the
percentage of the real phenomenon actually captured, (b) the
probability of capturing at least one target in any given
sample, (c) the confidence we can have in estimating the
frequency of occurrence of a target from a given sample, and
(d) the estimated age of emergence of a target structure. In
addition, we also report two empirical analyses of
relatively infrequent child language phenomena, in which we
sample in different ways from a relatively dense corpus (two
children aged 2;0 to 3;0) and compare the different results
obtained. Implications of these results for various issues
in the study of child language acquisition are
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0305000903005944},
Key = {fds351917}
}
@article{fds351918,
Author = {Liebal, K and Pika, S and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {To move or not to move: How apes adjust to the attentional
state of others},
Journal = {Interaction Studies},
Volume = {5},
Number = {2},
Pages = {199-219},
Year = {2004},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/is.5.2.03lie},
Abstract = {A previous observational study suggested that when faced
with a partner with its back turned, chimpanzees tend to
move around to the front of a non-attending partner and then
gesture-rather than gesturing once to attract attention and
then again to convey a specific intent.We investigated this
preference experimentally by presenting six orangutans, five
gorillas, nine chimpanzees, and four bonobos with a food
begging situation in which we varied the body orientation of
an experimenter (E) with respect to the subject (front vs.
back) and the location of the food (in front or behind E).
These manipulations allowed us to measure whether subjects
preferred to move around to face E or to use signals to
attract her attention before they begged for food. Results
showed that all species moved around to face E and then
produced visual gestures, instead of using tactile/ auditory
gestures behind E to call her attention. Species differences
were apparent particularly when the food and E were in
different locations. Unlike gorillas and orangutans,
chimpanzees and bonobos (from genus Pan) produced their
gestures in front of E in all conditions, including that in
which subjects had to leave the food behind to communicate
with her. Implications of these results are discussed in the
context of the evolution of social cognition in great apes.
© John Benjamins Publishing Company.},
Doi = {10.1075/is.5.2.03lie},
Key = {fds351918}
}
@article{fds351919,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Learning through others},
Journal = {Daedalus},
Volume = {133},
Number = {1},
Pages = {51-58},
Year = {2004},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/001152604772746693},
Doi = {10.1162/001152604772746693},
Key = {fds351919}
}
@article{fds351920,
Author = {Liebal, K and Pika, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Social communication in siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus):
use of gestures and facial expressions.},
Journal = {Primates; journal of primatology},
Volume = {45},
Number = {1},
Pages = {41-57},
Year = {2004},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10329-003-0063-7},
Abstract = {The current study represents the first systematic
investigation of the social communication of captive
siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus). The focus was on
intentional signals, including tactile and visual gestures,
as well as facial expressions and actions. Fourteen
individuals from different groups were observed and the
signals used by individuals were recorded. Thirty-one
different signals, consisting of 12 tactile gestures, 8
visual gestures, 7 actions, and 4 facial expressions, were
observed, with tactile gestures and facial expressions
appearing most frequently. The range of the signal
repertoire increased steadily until the age of six, but
declined afterwards in adults. The proportions of the
different signal categories used within communicative
interactions, in particular actions and facial expressions,
also varied depending on age. Group differences could be
traced back mainly to social factors or housing conditions.
Differences in the repertoire of males and females were most
obvious in the sexual context. Overall, most signals were
used flexibly, with the majority performed in three or more
social contexts and almost one-third of signals used in
combination with other signals. Siamangs also adjusted their
signals appropriately for the recipient, for example, using
visual signals most often when the recipient was already
attending (audience effects). These observations are
discussed in the context of siamang ecology, social
structure, and cognition.},
Doi = {10.1007/s10329-003-0063-7},
Key = {fds351920}
}
@article{fds351921,
Author = {Savage, C and Lieven, E and Theakston, A and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Testing the abstractness of children's linguistic
representations: Lexical and structural priming of syntactic
constructions in young children},
Journal = {Developmental Science},
Volume = {6},
Number = {5},
Pages = {557-567},
Year = {2003},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-7687.00312},
Abstract = {The current studies used a priming methodology to assess the
abstractness of children's early syntactic constructions. In
the main study, 3-, 4- and 6-year-old children were asked to
describe a prime picture by repeating either an active or a
passive sentence, and then they were left to their own
devices to describe a target picture. For half the children
at each age, the prime sentences they repeated had high
lexical overlap with the sentence they were likely to
produce for the target, whereas for the other half there was
very low lexical overlap between prime and target. The main
result was that 6-year-old children showed both lexical and
structural priming for both the active transitive and
passive constructions, whereas 3- and 4-year-old children
showed lexical priming only. This pattern of results would
seem to indicate that 6-year-old children have relatively
abstract representations of these constructions, whereas 3-
and 4-year-old children have as an integral part of their
representations certain specific lexical items, especially
pronouns and some grammatical morphemes. In a second study
it was found that children did not need to repeat the prime
out loud in order to be primed - suggesting that the priming
effect observed concerns not just peripheral production
mechanisms but underlying linguistic representations common
to comprehension and production. These results support the
view that young children develop abstract linguistic
representations gradually during the preschool
years.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-7687.00312},
Key = {fds351921}
}
@article{fds351922,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Haberl, K},
Title = {Understanding attention: 12- and 18-month-olds know what is
new for other persons.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {39},
Number = {5},
Pages = {906-912},
Year = {2003},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.39.5.906},
Abstract = {Infants at 12 and 18 months of age played with 2 adults and
2 new toys. For a 3rd toy, however, 1 of the adults left the
room while the child and the other adult played with it.
This adult then returned, looked at all 3 toys aligned on a
tray, showed great excitement ("Wow! Cool!"), and then
asked, "Can you give it to me?' To retrieve the toy the
adult wanted, infants had to (a) know that people attend to
and get excited about new things and (b) identify what was
new for the adult even though it was not new for them.
Infants at both ages did this successfully, lending support
to the hypothesis that 1-year-old infants possess a genuine
understanding of other persons as intentional and
attentional agents.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.39.5.906},
Key = {fds351922}
}
@article{fds351923,
Author = {Call, J and Bräuer, J and Kaminski, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are sensitive to the
attentional state of humans.},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {117},
Number = {3},
Pages = {257-263},
Year = {2003},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.117.3.257},
Abstract = {Twelve domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) were given a series
of trials in which they were forbidden to take a piece of
visible food. In some trials, the human continued to look at
the dog throughout the trial (control condition), whereas in
others, the human (a) left the room, (b) turned her back,
(c) engaged in a distracting activity, or (d) closed her
eyes. Dogs behaved in clearly different ways in most of the
conditions in which the human did not watch them compared
with the control condition, in which she did. In particular,
when the human looked at them, dogs retrieved less food,
approached it in a more indirect way, and sat (as opposed to
laid down) more often than in the other conditions. Results
are discussed in terms of domestic dogs' social-cognitive
skills and their unique evolutionary and ontogenetic
histories.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.117.3.257},
Key = {fds351923}
}
@article{fds351924,
Author = {Theakston, AL and Lieven, EVM and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The role of the input in the acquisition of third person
singular verbs in English.},
Journal = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research :
JSLHR},
Volume = {46},
Number = {4},
Pages = {863-877},
Year = {2003},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2003/067)},
Abstract = {During the early stages of language acquisition, children
pass through a stage of development when they produce both
finite and nonfinite verb forms in finite contexts (e.g.,
"it go there," "it goes there"). Theorists who assume that
children operate with an abstract understanding of tense and
agreement marking from the beginnings of language use tend
to explain this phenomenon in terms of either performance
limitations in production (e.g., V. Valian, 1991) or the
optional use of finite forms in finite contexts due to a
lack of knowledge that tense and agreement marking is
obligatory (the optional infinitive hypothesis; K. Wexler,
1994, 1996). An alternative explanation, however, is that
children's use of nonfinite forms is based on the presence
of questions in the input ("Where does it go?") where the
grammatical subject is immediately followed by a nonfinite
verb form. To compare these explanations, 2 groups of 24
children aged between 2 years 6 months and 3 years were
exposed to 6 known and 3 novel verbs produced in either
declaratives or questions or in both declaratives and
questions. The children were then questioned to elicit use
of the verbs in either finite or nonfinite contexts. The
results show that for novel verbs, the children's patterns
of verb use were closely related to the patterns of verb use
modeled in the language to which they were exposed. For
known verbs, there were no differences in the children's use
of individual verbs, regardless of the specific patterns of
verb use modeled in the language they heard. The
implications of these findings for theories of early verb
use are discussed.},
Doi = {10.1044/1092-4388(2003/067)},
Key = {fds351924}
}
@article{fds351925,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Akhtar, N},
Title = {What paradox? A response to Naigles (2002).},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {88},
Number = {3},
Pages = {317-323},
Year = {2003},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-0277(03)00048-9},
Doi = {10.1016/s0010-0277(03)00048-9},
Key = {fds351925}
}
@article{fds351926,
Author = {Lohmann, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The role of language in the development of false belief
understanding: a training study.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {74},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1130-1144},
Year = {2003},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00597},
Abstract = {The current study used a training methodology to determine
whether different kinds of linguistic interaction play a
causal role in children's development of false belief
understanding. After 3 training sessions, 3-year-old
children improved their false belief understanding both in a
training condition involving perspective-shifting discourse
about deceptive objects (without mental state terms) and in
a condition in which sentential complement syntax was used
(without deceptive objects). Children did not improve in a
condition in which they were exposed to deceptive objects
without accompanying language. Children showed most
improvement in a condition using both perspective-shifting
discourse and sentential complement syntax, suggesting that
each of these types of linguistic experience plays an
independent role in the ontogeny of false belief
understanding.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-8624.00597},
Key = {fds351926}
}
@article{fds351927,
Author = {Pika, S and Liebal, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Gestural communication in young gorillas (Gorilla gorilla):
gestural repertoire, learning, and use.},
Journal = {American journal of primatology},
Volume = {60},
Number = {3},
Pages = {95-111},
Year = {2003},
Month = {July},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajp.10097},
Abstract = {In the present study we investigated the gestural
communication of gorillas (Gorilla gorilla). The subjects
were 13 gorillas (1-6 years old) living in two different
groups in captivity. Our goal was to compile the gestural
repertoire of subadult gorillas, with a special focus on
processes of social cognition, including attention to
individual and developmental variability, group variability,
and flexibility of use. Thirty-three different gestures (six
auditory, 11 tactile, and 16 visual gestures) were recorded.
We found idiosyncratic gestures, individual differences, and
similar degrees of concordance between and within groups, as
well as some group-specific gestures. These results provide
evidence that ontogenetic ritualization is the main learning
process involved, but some form of social learning may also
be responsible for the acquisition of special gestures. The
present study establishes that gorillas have a multifaceted
gestural repertoire, characterized by a great deal of
flexibility with accommodations to various communicative
circumstances, including the attentional state of the
recipient. The possibility of assigning Seyfarth and
Cheney's [1997] model for nonhuman primate vocal development
to the development of nonhuman primate gestural
communication is discussed.},
Doi = {10.1002/ajp.10097},
Key = {fds351927}
}
@article{fds326035,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J and Hare, B},
Title = {Chimpanzees versus humans: It's not that
simple},
Journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
Volume = {7},
Number = {6},
Pages = {239-240},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2003},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00107-4},
Doi = {10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00107-4},
Key = {fds326035}
}
@article{fds351928,
Author = {Lieven, E and Behrens, H and Speares, J and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Early syntactic creativity: a usage-based
approach.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {30},
Number = {2},
Pages = {333-370},
Year = {2003},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000903005592},
Abstract = {The aim of the current study was to determine the degree to
which a sample of one child's creative utterances related to
utterances that the child previously produced. The
utterances to be accounted for were all of the intelligible,
multi-word utterances produced by the child in a single hour
of interaction with her mother early in her third year of
life (at age 2;1.11). We used a high-density database
consisting of 5 hours of recordings per week together with a
maternal diary for the previous 6 weeks. Of the 295
multi-word utterances on tape, 37% were 'novel' in the sense
that they had not been said in their entirety before. Using
a morpheme-matching method, we identified the way(s) in
which each novel utterance differed from its closest match
in the preceding corpus. In 74% of the cases we required
only one operation to match the previous utterance and the
great majority of these consisted of the substitution of a
word (usually a noun) into a previous utterance or schema.
Almost all the other single-operation utterances involved
adding a word onto the beginning or end of a previous
utterance. 26% of the novel, multi-word utterances required
more than one operation to match the closest previous
utterance, although many of these only involved a
combination of the two operations seen for the
single-operation utterances. Some others were, however, more
complex to match. The results suggest that the relatively
high degree of creativity in early English child language
could be at least partially based upon entrenched schemas
and a small number of simple operations to modify them. We
discuss the implications of these results for the interplay
in language production between strings registered in memory
and categorial knowledge.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000903005592},
Key = {fds351928}
}
@article{fds325200,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J and Hare, B},
Title = {Chimpanzees understand psychological states - The question
is which ones and to what extent},
Journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
Volume = {7},
Number = {4},
Pages = {153-156},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2003},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00035-4},
Abstract = {New data suggest that relatively drastic revisions are
needed in our theoretical accounts of what other animal
species understand about the psychological states of others.
Specifically, chimpanzees seem to understand some things
about what others do and do not see, or have and have not
seen in the immediate past, as well as some things about
others' goal-directed activities. This is especially so in
competitive situations. They clearly do not have a
human-like theory of mind, however, and so the challenge is
to specify precisely how ape and human social cognition are
similar and different.},
Doi = {10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00035-4},
Key = {fds325200}
}
@article{fds351929,
Author = {Childers, JB and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Children extend both words and non-verbal actions to novel
exemplars},
Journal = {Developmental Science},
Volume = {6},
Number = {2},
Pages = {185-190},
Year = {2003},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-7687.00270},
Abstract = {Markson and Bloom (1997) found that some learning processes
involved in children's acquisition of a new word are also
involved in their acquisition of a new fact. They argued
that these findings provided evidence against a
domain-specific system for word learning. However, Waxman
and Booth (2000) found that whereas children quite readily
extend newly learned words to novel exemplars within a
category, they do not do this with newly learned facts. They
therefore argued that because children did not extend some
facts in a principled way, word learning and fact learning
may result from different domain-specific processes. In the
current study, we argue that facts are a poor comparison in
this argument since facts vary in whether they are tied to
particular individuals. A more appropriate comparison is a
conventional non-verbal action on an object - 'what we do
with things like this' - since they are routinely
generalized categorically to new objects. Our study shows
that 2 1/2-year-old children extend novel non-verbal actions
to new objects in the same way that they extend novel words
to new objects. The findings provide support for the view
that word learning represents a unique configuration of more
general learning processes.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-7687.00270},
Key = {fds351929}
}
@article{fds366601,
Author = {Lohmann, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Language and social understanding: Commentary on Nelson et
al.},
Journal = {Human Development},
Volume = {46},
Number = {1},
Pages = {47-50},
Year = {2003},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000067778},
Doi = {10.1159/000067778},
Key = {fds366601}
}
@article{fds326346,
Author = {Hare, B and Addessi, E and Call, J and Tomasello, M and Visalberghi,
E},
Title = {Do capuchin monkeys, Cebus apella, know what conspecifics do
and do not see?},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {65},
Number = {1},
Pages = {131-142},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2003},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2002.2017},
Abstract = {Capuchin monkeys were tested in five experiments in which
two individuals competed over food. When given a choice
between retrieving a piece of food that was visible or
hidden from the dominant, subordinate animals preferred to
retrieve hidden food. This preference is consistent with the
hypotheses that either (1) the subordinate knew what the
dominant could and could not see or (2) the subordinate was
monitoring the behaviour of the dominant and avoiding the
piece of food that it approached. To test between these
alternatives, we released subordinates with a slight head
start forcing them to make their choice (between a piece of
food hidden or visible to the dominant) before the dominant
entered the area. Unlike chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes,
subordinates that were given a head start did not
preferentially approach hidden pieces of food first.
Therefore, our experiments provide little support for the
hypothesis that capuchin monkeys are sensitive to what
another individual does or does not see. We compare our
results with those obtained with chimpanzees in the same
paradigm and discuss the evolution of primate social
cognition. © 2003 The Association for the Study of Animal
Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1006/anbe.2002.2017},
Key = {fds326346}
}
@article{fds351930,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Rakoczy, H},
Title = {What makes human cognition unique? From individual to shared
to collective intentionality},
Journal = {Mind and Language},
Volume = {18},
Number = {2},
Pages = {121-147},
Year = {2003},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0017.00217},
Abstract = {It is widely believed that what distinguishes the social
cognition of humans from that of other animals is the
belief-desire psychology of four-year-old children and
adults (so-called theory of mind). We argue here that this
is actually the second ontogenetic step in uniquely human
social cognition. The first step is one year old children's
understanding of persons as intentional agents, which
enables skills of cultural learning and shared
intentionality. This initial step is 'the real thing' in the
sense that it enables young children to participate in
cultural activities using shared, perspectival symbols with
a conventional/normative/reflective dimension - for example,
linguistic communication and pretend play - thus
inaugurating children's understanding of things mental.
Understanding beliefs and participating in collective
intentionality at four years of age - enabling the
comprehension of such things as money and marriage - results
from several years of engagement with other persons in
perspective-shifting and reflective discourse containing
propositional attitude constructions.},
Doi = {10.1111/1468-0017.00217},
Key = {fds351930}
}
@article{fds351931,
Author = {Cameron-Faulkner, T and Lieven, E and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {A construction based analysis of child directed
speech},
Journal = {Cognitive Science},
Volume = {27},
Number = {6},
Pages = {843-873},
Year = {2003},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.06.001},
Abstract = {The child directed speech of twelve English-speaking mothers
was analyzed in terms of utterance-level constructions.
First, the mothers' utterances were categorized in terms of
general constructional categories such as Wh-questions,
copulas and transitives. Second, mothers' utterances within
these categories were further specified in terms of the
initial words that framed the utterance, item-based phrases
such as Are you ..., I'll ..., It's ..., Let's ..., What did
.... The findings were: (i) overall, only about 15% of all
maternal utterances had SVO form (most were questions,
imperatives, copulas, and fragments); (ii) 51% of all
maternal utterances began with one of 52 item-based phrases,
mostly consisting of two words or morphemes (45% began with
one of just 17 words); and (iii) children used many of these
same item-based phrases, in some cases at a rate that
correlated highly with their own mother's frequency of use.
We suggest that analyses of adult-child linguistic
interaction should take into account not just general
constructional categories, but also the item-based
constructions that adults and children use and the frequency
with which they use them. © 2003 Cognitive Science Society,
Inc. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.06.001},
Key = {fds351931}
}
@article{fds351932,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Things are what they do: Katherine Nelson's functional
approach to language and cognition},
Journal = {Journal of Cognition and Development},
Volume = {3},
Number = {1},
Pages = {5-19},
Year = {2002},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327647JCD0301_2},
Abstract = {This article attempts to summarize Katherine Nelson's
theoretical and empirical contributions to the ontogenetic
study of language and cognition. Nelson's approach has
consistently emphasized the function of language and
linguistic concepts in children's larger conceptual and
social lives and, conversely, how children's emerging
understanding of the function of linguistic symbols in
larger conceptual and social structures makes language
acquisition possible in the first place. This approach has
led to an especially fruitful body of theoretical and
empirical work. Copyright © 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/S15327647JCD0301_2},
Key = {fds351932}
}
@article{fds325201,
Author = {Hare, B and Brown, M and Williamson, C and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {The domestication of social cognition in
dogs.},
Journal = {Science (New York, N.Y.)},
Volume = {298},
Number = {5598},
Pages = {1634-1636},
Year = {2002},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1072702},
Abstract = {Dogs are more skillful than great apes at a number of tasks
in which they must read human communicative signals
indicating the location of hidden food. In this study, we
found that wolves who were raised by humans do not show
these same skills, whereas domestic dog puppies only a few
weeks old, even those that have had little human contact, do
show these skills. These findings suggest that during the
process of domestication, dogs have been selected for a set
of social-cognitive abilities that enable them to
communicate with humans in unique ways.},
Doi = {10.1126/science.1072702},
Key = {fds325201}
}
@article{fds351933,
Author = {Childers, JB and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds learn novel nouns, verbs, and conventional
actions from massed or distributed exposures.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {38},
Number = {6},
Pages = {967-978},
Year = {2002},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.38.6.967},
Abstract = {Two-year-old children were taught either 6 novel nouns, 6
novel verbs, or 6 novel actions over 1 month. In each
condition, children were exposed to some items in massed
presentations (on a single day) and some in distributed
presentations (over the 2 weeks). Children's comprehension
and production was tested at 3 intervals after training. In
comprehension, children learned all types of items in all
training conditions at all retention intervals. For
production, the main findings were that (a) production was
better for nonverbal actions than for either word type, (b)
children produced more new nouns than verbs, (c) production
of words was better following distributed than massed
exposure, and (d) time to testing (immediate, 1 day, 1 week)
did not affect retention. A follow-up study showed that the
most important timing variable was the number of different
days of exposure, with more days facilitating production.
Results are discussed in terms of 2 key issues: (a) the
domain-generality versus domain-specificity of processes of
word learning and (b) the relative ease with which children
learn nouns versus verbs.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.38.6.967},
Key = {fds351933}
}
@article{fds351934,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {A new false belief test for 36-month-olds},
Journal = {British Journal of Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {20},
Number = {3},
Pages = {393-420},
Year = {2002},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151002320620316},
Abstract = {We report two studies that suggest that some 36-month-old
(and younger) children understand others' false beliefs. In
the false belief conditions, children and two adults (E1 and
E2) watched as an object was put into a container. E1 left
the room, and E2 switched that object with another. E1
returned, expressed her desire for the object, and struggled
to open the container (without succeeding). She spied both
objects across the room and said to the child. 'Oh, there it
is. Can you get it for me?' In other conditions, the object
was not switched or E1 witnessed the switch. Other
variations included using a novel word for the object and
removing the 'pull of the real'. Measures of children's
latency and uncertainty were taken to determine whether
those who were correct on the false belief tasks were
guessing (luckily) or truly understanding. Results showed
that between one-third and almost two-thirds of children
took account of the adult's false belief when deciding which
object the adult was requesting. We compare this task with
other implicit and explicit tasks. We also conclude that
certain task demands (e.g. the pull of the real) in
traditional theory of mind assessments are
unnecessary.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151002320620316},
Key = {fds351934}
}
@article{fds351935,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Understanding "prior intentions" enables two-year-olds to
imitatively learn a complex task.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {73},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1431-1441},
Year = {2002},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00481},
Abstract = {This study investigated children's understanding of others'
intentions in a social learning context. Specifically, it
investigated whether knowing an adult's prior intention
before the adult gives a demonstration influences what
children learn from the demonstration. In the five main
experimental conditions, ninety-six 2-year-old children
watched as an experimenter (E) pulled out a pin and opened
the door of a box. Children in two No Prior Intention
conditions saw this demonstration alone or paired with an
irrelevant action. Children in three Prior Intention
conditions knew what E was trying to do before the
demonstration: they first saw E either attempt
unsuccessfully to open the door, or visit and open several
other containers, or they first saw that the door opened.
Children opened the box themselves more often in each of
these three conditions than in the two No Prior Intention
conditions, even though children in all five conditions saw
the exact same demonstration of how to open the
box.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-8624.00481},
Key = {fds351935}
}
@article{fds351936,
Author = {Wittek, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {German children's productivity with tense morphology: the
Perfekt (present perfect).},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {29},
Number = {3},
Pages = {567-589},
Year = {2002},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000902005147},
Abstract = {Two nonce-word studies examined German-speaking children's
productivity with the Perfekt (present perfect) from 2;6 to
3;6. The German Perfekt consists of the past participle of
the main verb and an inflected form of an auxiliary (either
haben 'have' or sein 'be'). In Study 1, nonce verbs were
either introduced in the infinitival form, and children
(seventy-two children, aged 2;6 to 3;6) were tested on their
ability to produce the Perfekt, or introduced in the
Perfekt, and children were tested on their ability to
produce the infinitive. In Study 2 twenty-four children aged
3;6 were given the past participle form of nonce verbs to
see if they could supply the appropriate auxiliary (based
mainly on verb semantics). The results were that many
children as young as 2;6 used past participles productively
(more than used infinitival forms productively), but all
children had much difficulty in supplying both auxiliaries
appropriately. The current findings suggest that mastery of
the Perfekt construction as a whole does not take place
before the age of four and that frequency of exposure is an
important factor in determining the age at which children
acquire grammatical constructions.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000902005147},
Key = {fds351936}
}
@article{fds351937,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Abbot-Smith, K},
Title = {A tale of two theories: response to Fisher.},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {83},
Number = {2},
Pages = {207-214},
Year = {2002},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-0277(01)00172-x},
Doi = {10.1016/s0010-0277(01)00172-x},
Key = {fds351937}
}
@article{fds351938,
Author = {Childers, JB and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The role of pronouns in young children's acquisition of the
English transitive construction.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {37},
Number = {6},
Pages = {739-748},
Year = {2001},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.37.6.739},
Abstract = {Two studies investigating the linguistic representations
underlying English-speaking 2 1/2-year-olds' production of
transitive utterances are reported. The first study was a
training study in which half the children heard utterances
with full nouns as agent and patient, and half the children
heard utterances with both pronouns (i.e., He's [verb]-ing
it) and also full nouns. In subsequent testing, only
children who had been trained with pronouns and nouns were
able to produce a transitive utterance creatively with a
nonce verb. The second study reported an analogous set of
findings, but in comprehension. Together, the results of
these 2 studies suggest that English-speaking children build
many of their early linguistic constructions around certain
specific lexical or morphological items and patterns,
perhaps especially around particular pronoun
configurations.},
Doi = {10.1037//0012-1649.37.6.739},
Key = {fds351938}
}
@article{fds351939,
Author = {Campbell, AL and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The acquisition of English dative constructions},
Journal = {Applied Psycholinguistics},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {253-267},
Year = {2001},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716401002065},
Abstract = {We analyzed the three main types of English dative
constructions - the double-object dative, the to dative, and
the for dative - in the spontaneous speech of seven children
from the age of 1;6 to 5;0. The main findings were as
follows. First, the double-object dative was acquired by
most of the children before either of the prepositional
datives; this was attributed to the greater frequency with
which children heard this construction with individual
verbs. Second, the verbs children used with these
constructions were not only the adult prototypical ones, but
also a number of the less prototypical ones; again, this was
very likely due to their frequency and saliency in the
language children heard. Third, no support was found for
Ninio's (1999) analysis of the emergence of constructions in
terms of a single "pathbreaking" verb; rather, children
began using the double-object dative with many different
verbs and did not follow the trajectory proposed by Ninio
(i.e., a single verb is used for some months before an
"explosion" of new verbs is introduced in the construction).
Finally, most of the verbs initially used in the three
dative constructions were first used in other constructions
(e.g., a simple transitive); this was even true for some
obligatory datives, such as give and show. The current
results provide a starting point for determining the
underlying representations for the different kinds of dative
constructions and for explicating how children understand
the interrelations among these and other
constructions.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0142716401002065},
Key = {fds351939}
}
@article{fds325202,
Author = {Hare, B and Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do chimpanzees know what conspecifics know?},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {61},
Number = {1},
Pages = {139-151},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1518},
Abstract = {We conducted three experiments on social problem solving by
chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes. In each experiment a
subordinate and a dominant individual competed for food,
which was placed in various ways on the subordinate's side
of two opaque barriers. In some conditions dominants had not
seen the food hidden, or food they had seen hidden was moved
elsewhere when they were not watching (whereas in control
conditions they saw the food being hidden or moved). At the
same time, subordinates always saw the entire baiting
procedure and could monitor the visual access of their
dominant competitor as well. If subordinates were sensitive
to what dominants did or did not see during baiting, they
should have preferentially approached and retrieved the food
that dominants had not seen hidden or moved. This is what
they did in experiment 1 when dominants were either
uninformed or misinformed about the food's location. In
experiment 2 subordinates recognized, and adjusted their
behaviour accordingly, when the dominant individual who
witnessed the hiding was replaced with another dominant
individual who had not witnessed it, thus demonstrating
their ability to keep track of precisely who has witnessed
what. In experiment 3 subordinates did not choose
consistently between two pieces of hidden food, one of which
dominants had seen hidden and one of which they had not seen
hidden. However, their failure in this experiment was likely
to be due to the changed nature of the competition under
these circumstances and not to a failure of social-cognitive
skills. These findings suggest that at least in some
situations (i.e. competition with conspecifics) chimpanzees
know what conspecifics have and have not seen (do and do not
know), and that they use this information to devise
effective social-cognitive strategies. © 2001 The
Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1006/anbe.2000.1518},
Key = {fds325202}
}
@article{fds325570,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Hare, B and Fogleman, T},
Title = {The ontogeny of gaze following in chimpanzees, Pan
troglodytes, and rhesus macaques, Macaca
mulatta},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {61},
Number = {2},
Pages = {335-343},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1598},
Abstract = {Primates follow the gaze direction of conspecifics to
outside objects. We followed the ontogeny of this
social-cognitive skill for two species: rhesus macaques and
chimpanzees, in the first two experiments, using both a
cross-sectional and a longitudinal design, we exposed
individuals of different ages to a human looking in a
specified direction. Rhesus infants first began reliably to
follow the direction of this gaze at the end of the early
infancy period, at about 5.5 months of age. Chimpanzees did
not reliably follow human gaze until 3-4 years; this
corresponds to the latter part of the late infancy period
for this species. In the third experiment we exposed
individuals of the same two species to a human repeatedly
looking to the same location (with no special object at that
location) to see if subjects would learn to ignore the
looks. Only adults of the two species diminished their
gaze-following behaviour over trials. This suggests that in
the period between infancy and adulthood individuals of both
species come to integrate their gaze-following skills with
their more general social-cognitive knowledge about other
animate beings and their behaviour, and so become able to
deploy their gaze-following skills in a more flexible
manner. © 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal
Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1006/anbe.2000.1598},
Key = {fds325570}
}
@article{fds351940,
Author = {Diessel, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Development of Relative Clauses in Spontaneous Child
Speech},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {11},
Number = {1-2},
Pages = {131-151},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2001.006},
Abstract = {This study examines the development of relative clauses in
the speech of four English-speaking children between 1;9 and
5;2 years of age. It is shown that the earliest relative
clauses occur in presentational constructions that express a
single proposition in two finite clauses. Starting from such
simple sentences, children gradually learn the use of more
complex constructions in which the relative clause modifes
the noun of a full-edged main clause. Five factors are
considered that might contribute to the development of
relative clauses in spontaneous child speech: (1) the
ambient language, (2) the formulaic character of the main
clause, (3) the information structure of the whole
utterance, (4) the communicative function of presentational
relatives, and (5) the limited processing capacity of young
children. © 2001, 2000 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1515/cogl.2001.006},
Key = {fds351940}
}
@article{fds351941,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {First steps toward a usage-based theory of language
acquisition},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {11},
Number = {1-2},
Pages = {61-82},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cogl.2001.012},
Abstract = {Usage-based models of language focus on the specific
communicative events in which people learn and use language.
In these models, the psycholinguistic units with which
individuals operate are determined not by theoretical fiat
but by observation of actual language use in actual
communicative events. This data-based approach make these
models especially congenial for the analysis of children's
language, since children do not learn and use the same units
as adults. In this paper I employ a usage-based model of
language to argue for five fundamental facts about child
language acquisition: (1) the primary psycholinguistic unit
of child language acquisition is the utterance, which has as
its foundation the expression and understanding of
communicative intentions; (2) early in their language
development children are attempting to reproduce not adult
words but whole adult utterances; (3) children's earliest
utterances are almost totally concrete in the sense that
they are instantiations of item-based schemas or
constructions; (4) abstractions result from children
generalizing across the type variation they observe at
particular “slots” in otherwise recurrent tokens of the
same utterance; and (5) children create novel utterances for
themselves via usage-based syntactic operations in which
they begin with an utterance-level schema and then modify
that schema for the exigencies of the particular
communicative situation (usage event) at hand. © 2001, 2000
by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1515/cogl.2001.012},
Key = {fds351941}
}
@article{fds351942,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cultural Transmission:A View from Chimpanzees and Human
Infants},
Journal = {Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology},
Volume = {32},
Number = {2},
Pages = {135-146},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022022101032002002},
Abstract = {Human beings are biologically adapted for culture in ways
that other primates are not, as evidenced most clearly by
the fact that only human cultural traditions accumulate
modifications over historical time (the ratchet effect). The
key adaptation is one that enables individuals to understand
other individuals as intentional agents like the self. This
species-unique form of social cognition emerges in human
ontogeny at around 1 year of age as infants begin to engage
with other persons in various kinds of joint attentional
activities involving gaze following, social referencing, and
gestural communication. Young children–s joint attentional
skills then engender some uniquely powerful forms of
cultural learning, enabling the acquisition of language,
discourse skills, tool use practices, and many other
conventional activities. These novel forms of cultural
learning allow human beings to pool their cognitive
resources both contemporaneously and over historical time in
ways that are unique in the animal kingdom. © 2015, Sage
Publications. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1177/0022022101032002002},
Key = {fds351942}
}
@article{fds351943,
Author = {Diessel, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English: A
corpus-based analysis},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {12},
Number = {2},
Pages = {97-142},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cogl.12.2.97},
Abstract = {This article examines the development of finite complement
clauses in the speech of seven English-speaking children
aged 1;2 to 5;2.It shows that in most of children's complex
utterances that seem to include a finite complement clause,
the main clause does not express a full proposition; rather,
it functions as an epistemic marker, attention getter, or
marker of illocutionary force. The whole construction thus
contains only a single proposition expressed by the apparent
complement clause. As children grow older, some of the
“main clauses” become more substantial and new
complement-taking verbs emerge that occur with truly
embedded complement clauses. However, since the use of these
constructions is limited to only a few verbs, we argue that
they are not yet licensed by a general schema or rule;
rather, they are “constructional islands” organized
around individual verbs. © 2001, Walter de Gruyter. All
rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1515/cogl.12.2.97},
Key = {fds351943}
}
@article{fds351944,
Author = {Pika, S and Tomasello, M},
Title = {'Separating the wheat from the chaff': A novel food
processing technique in captive Gorillas (Gorilla g.
gorilla)},
Journal = {Primates},
Volume = {42},
Number = {2},
Pages = {167-170},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02558144},
Abstract = {Observation of a novel food processing technique is reported
for captive zoo gorillas (Gorilla g. gorilla). It is similar
in function to that of Japanese macaques' wheat placer
mining behaviour and consists of puffing/blowing air with
the mouth onto a mixture of oat grains and chaff in order to
separate out the oat grains. Three females in two of four
groups regularly use this behaviour. Other individuals in
these groups or individuals of the two other groups in the
same zoo do not use it. However, a very similar behaviour
has been observed in three other individuals in a gorilla
group of another zoo. The existence of this technique in
spatially separated groups implies that multiple individuals
have invented it for themselves. The possible role of social
transmission is still to be investigated.},
Doi = {10.1007/BF02558144},
Key = {fds351944}
}
@article{fds351945,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Could we please lose the mapping metaphor,
please?},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {24},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1119-1120},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x01390131},
Abstract = {Although Bloom gives more credit to social cognition (mind
reading) than do most other theorists of word learning, he
does not go far enough. He still relies fundamentally on a
learning process of association (or mapping), neglecting the
joint attentional and cultural learning skills from which
linguistic communication emerges at one year of
age.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x01390131},
Key = {fds351945}
}
@article{fds351946,
Author = {Abbot-Smith, K and Lieven, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {What preschool children do and do not do with ungrammatical
word orders},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {16},
Number = {2},
Pages = {679-692},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00054-5},
Abstract = {Akhtar [J. Child Lang. 26 (1999) 339.] found that when
4-year-old English-speaking children hear novel verbs in
transitive utterances with ungrammatical word orders (e.g.,
Elmo the tree meeked), they correct them to canonical SVO
order almost all of the time. However, when 3-year-olds and
older 2-year-olds hear these same utterances, they waver
between correcting and using the ungrammatical ordering. In
the current study, we adapted this task for children at 2;4,
using an intransitive construction. The major finding was
that children corrected the noncanonical word order less
than half as often as Akhtar's 2-year-old subjects who were
approximately 4 months older. At the same time, however,
children showed in several ways that they had some implicit
understanding of canonical SV order; for example, they used
the novel verb which they heard used in grammatical word
order more often than the novel verb which they heard in
ungrammatical word order, and they consistently used
pronouns and the progressive -s auxiliary in appropriate
ways. The current findings thus contribute to a growing body
of theory and research suggesting that the ontogenetic
emergence of linguistic categories and schemas is a gradual
process, as is the emergence of categories in other domains
of cognitive development. © 2001 Elsevier Science
Inc.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00054-5},
Key = {fds351946}
}
@article{fds366602,
Author = {Striano, T and Tomasello, M and Rochat, P},
Title = {Social and object support for early symbolic
play},
Journal = {Developmental Science},
Volume = {4},
Number = {4},
Pages = {442-455},
Year = {2001},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-7687.00186},
Abstract = {In this study we sought to determine the degree to which
2-to 3-year-old children use objects symbolically in the
relative absence of adult symbolic actions or linguistic
descriptions, and how the nature of objects influences
symbolic play. Results revealed a dramatic increase in
children's creative symbolic productions between 2 and 3
years of age, with the tendency to produce symbolic actions
influenced to an equal degree by adult symbolic action
models and verbal directions. Children of all ages were
heavily influenced by the nature of the object to be used as
a symbol, with the youngest children using only replica
objects as symbols. In a second study, we examined
children's looks to an adult as they engaged in different
kinds of activities with objects. The main finding was that
children looked to the adult immediately after performing a
symbolic action more often than if they performed an
instrumental action. We argue for the essentially social
nature of symbolic play, both in terms of how children learn
to use objects as symbols and in terms of the reasons they
do so.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-7687.00186},
Key = {fds366602}
}
@article{fds325203,
Author = {Agnetta, B and Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cues to food location that domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)
of different ages do and do not use},
Journal = {Animal Cognition},
Volume = {3},
Number = {2},
Pages = {107-112},
Publisher = {Springer Nature},
Year = {2000},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s100710000070},
Abstract = {The results of three experiments are reported. In the main
study, a human experimenter presented domestic dogs (Canis
familiaris) with a variety of social cues intended to
indicate the location of hidden food. The novel findings of
this study were: (1) dogs were able to use successfully
several totally novel cues in which they watched a human
place a marker in front of the target location; (2) dogs
were unable to use the marker by itself with no behavioral
cues (suggesting that some form of human behavior directed
to the target location was a necessary part of the cue); and
(3) there were no significant developments in dogs' skills
in these tasks across the age range 4 months to 4 years
(arguing against the necessity of extensive learning
experiences with humans). In a follow- up study, dogs did
not follow human gaze into "empty space" outside of the
simulated foraging context. Finally, in a small pilot study,
two arctic wolves (Canis lupus) were unable to use human
cues to locate hidden food. These results suggest the
possibility that domestic dogs have evolved an adaptive
specialization for using human-produced directional cues in
a goal-directed (especially foraging) context. Exactly how
they understand these cues is still an open question. ©
Springer-Verlag 2000.},
Doi = {10.1007/s100710000070},
Key = {fds325203}
}
@article{fds351947,
Author = {Call, J and Agnetta, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cues that chimpanzees do and do not use to find hidden
objects},
Journal = {Animal Cognition},
Volume = {3},
Number = {1},
Pages = {23-34},
Year = {2000},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s100710050047},
Abstract = {Chimpanzees follow conspecific and human gaze direction
reliably in some situations, but very few chimpanzees
reliably use gaze direction or other communicative signals
to locate hidden food in the object-choice task. Three
studies aimed at exploring factors that affect chimpanzee
performance in this task are reported. In the first study,
vocalizations and other noises facilitated the performance
of some chimpanzees (only a minority). In the second study,
various behavioral cues were given in which a human
experimenter either touched, approached, or actually lifted
and looked under the container where the food was hidden.
Each of these cues led to enhanced performance for only a
very few individuals. In the third study - a replication
with some methodological improvements of a previous
experiment - chimpanzees were confronted with two
experimenters giving conflicting cues about the location of
the hidden food, with one of them (the knower) having
witnessed the hiding process and the other (the guesser)
not. In the crucial test in which a third experimenter did
the hiding, no chimpanzee found the food at above chance
levels. Overall, in all three studies, by far the best
performers were two individuals who had been raised in
infancy by humans. It thus seems that while chimpanzees are
very good at "behavior reading" of various sorts, including
gaze following, they do not understand the communicative
intentions (informative intentions) behind the looking and
gesturing of others - with the possible exception of
enculturated chimpanzees, who still do not understand the
differential significance of looking and gesturing done by
people who have different knowledge about states of affairs
in the world. © Springer-Verlag 2000.},
Doi = {10.1007/s100710050047},
Key = {fds351947}
}
@article{fds351948,
Author = {Campbell, AL and Brooks, P and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Factors affecting young children's use of pronouns as
referring expressions.},
Journal = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research :
JSLHR},
Volume = {43},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1337-1349},
Year = {2000},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/jslhr.4306.1337},
Abstract = {Most studies of children's use of pronouns have focused
either on the morphology of personal pronouns or on the
anaphoric use of pronouns by older children. The current two
studies investigated factors affecting children's choice of
pronouns as referring expressions-in contrast with their use
of full nouns and null references. In the first study it was
found that 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children did not use
pronouns differentially whether the adult (a) modeled a
pronoun or a noun for the target object or (b) did or did
not witness the target event (although there was evidence
that they did notice and take account of the adult's
witnessing in other ways). In the second study it was found
that children of this same age (a) do not use pronouns to
avoid unfamiliar or difficult nouns but (b) do use pronouns
differently depending on the immediately preceding discourse
of the experimenter (whether they were asked a specific
question such as "What did X do?" or a general question such
as "What happened?"). In the case of specific questions,
children prefer to use a null reference but use some
pronouns as well (almost never using full nouns); in the
case of the generic questions, children use pronouns even
more often (and use nouns more as well). This finding was
corroborated by some new analyses of children's use of
pronouns in specific discourse situations in previously
published studies. These findings suggest that children's
choice of pronouns as referring expressions in early
language development is influenced more by the immediately
preceding discourse than other kinds of factors.},
Doi = {10.1044/jslhr.4306.1337},
Key = {fds351948}
}
@article{fds351949,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Erratum: (Trends in Cognitive Sciences (April) 4:4
(156-163))},
Journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
Volume = {4},
Number = {5},
Pages = {186},
Year = {2000},
Month = {May},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01481-9},
Doi = {10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01481-9},
Key = {fds351949}
}
@article{fds351950,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The item-based nature of children's early syntactic
development},
Journal = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
Volume = {4},
Number = {4},
Pages = {156-163},
Year = {2000},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01462-5},
Abstract = {Recent research using both naturalistic and experimental
methods has found that the vast majority of young children's
early language is organized around concrete, item-based
linguistic schemas. From this beginning, children then
construct more abstract and adult-like linguistic
constructions, but only gradually and in piecemeal fashion.
These new data present significant problems for nativist
accounts of children's language development that use
adult-like linguistic categories, structures and formal
grammars as analytical tools. Instead, the best account of
these data is provided by a usage-based model in which
children imitatively learn concrete linguistic expressions
from the language they hear around them, and then - using
their general cognitive and social-cognitive skills -
categorize, schematize and creatively combine these
individually learned expressions and structures. Copyright
(C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.},
Doi = {10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01462-5},
Key = {fds351950}
}
@article{fds351951,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do young children have adult syntactic competence?},
Journal = {Cognition},
Volume = {74},
Number = {3},
Pages = {209-253},
Year = {2000},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0010-0277(99)00069-4},
Abstract = {Many developmental psycholinguists assume that young
children have adult syntactic competence, this assumption
being operationalized in the use of adult-like grammars to
describe young children's language. This "continuity
assumption" has never had strong empirical support, but
recently a number of new findings have emerged - both from
systematic analyses of children's spontaneous speech and
from controlled experiments - that contradict it directly.
In general, the key finding is that most of children's early
linguistic competence is item based, and therefore their
language development proceeds in a piecemeal fashion with
virtually no evidence of any system-wide syntactic
categories, schemas, or parameters. For a variety of
reasons, these findings are not easily explained in terms of
the development of children's skills of linguistic
performance, pragmatics, or other "external" factors. The
framework of an alternative, usage-based theory of child
language acquisition - relying explicitly on new models from
Cognitive-Functional Linguistics - is presented.},
Doi = {10.1016/s0010-0277(99)00069-4},
Key = {fds351951}
}
@article{fds325204,
Author = {Hare, B and Call, J and Agnetta, B and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzees know what conspecifics do and do not
see},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {59},
Number = {4},
Pages = {771-785},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {2000},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1999.1377},
Abstract = {We report a series of experiments on social problem solving
in chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes. In each experiment a
subordinate and a dominant individual were put into
competition over two pieces of food. In all experiments
dominants obtained virtually all of the foods to which they
had good visual and physical access. However, subordinates
were successful quite often in three situations in which
they had better visual access to the food than the dominant,
for example, when the food was positioned so that only the
subordinate (and not the dominant) could see it. In some
cases, the subordinate might have been monitoring the
behaviour of the dominant directly and simply avoided the
food that the dominant was moving towards (which just
happened to be the one it could see). In other cases,
however, we ruled out this possibility by giving
subordinates a small headstart and forcing them to make
their choice (to go to the food that both competitors could
see, or the food that only they could see) before the
dominant was released into the area. Together with other
recent studies, the present investigation suggests that
chimpanzees know what conspecifics can and cannot see, and,
furthermore, that they use this knowledge to devise
effective social-cognitive strategies in naturally occurring
food competition situations. (C)2000 The Association for the
Study of Animal Behaviour.},
Doi = {10.1006/anbe.1999.1377},
Key = {fds325204}
}
@article{fds351952,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Culture and cognitive development},
Journal = {Current Directions in Psychological Science},
Volume = {9},
Number = {2},
Pages = {37-40},
Year = {2000},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00056},
Abstract = {Human beings are biologically adapted for culture in ways
that other primates are not. The difference can be clearly
seen when the social learning skills of humans and their
nearest primate relatives are systematically compared. The
human adaptation for culture begins to make itself manifest
in human ontogeny at around 1 year of age as human infants
come to undestrand other persons as intentional agents like
the self and so engage in joint attentional interactions
with them. This understanding then enables young children
(a) to employ some uniquely powerful forms of cultural
learning to acquire the accumulated wisdom of their
cultures, especially as embodied in language, and also (b)
to comprehend their worlds in some uniquely powerful ways
involving perspectivally based symbolic representations.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-8721.00056},
Key = {fds351952}
}
@article{fds351953,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Primate cognition: Introduction to the issue},
Journal = {Cognitive Science},
Volume = {24},
Number = {3},
Pages = {351-361},
Year = {2000},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2403_1},
Abstract = {I introduce the special issue by: (1) outlining something of
the relationship between mainstream cognitive science and
the study of nonhuman primate cognition; (2) providing a
brief overview of the scientific study of primate cognition
and how the papers of this special issue fit into that
scientific paradigm; and (3) explicating my own views about
the relationship between nonhuman primate cognition and
human cognition. © 2000 Cognitive Science Society,
Inc.},
Doi = {10.1207/s15516709cog2403_1},
Key = {fds351953}
}
@article{fds351954,
Author = {Bellagamba, F and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Re-enacting intended acts: Comparing 12- and
18-month-olds},
Journal = {Infant Behavior and Development},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {277-282},
Year = {1999},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0163-6383(99)00002-8},
Abstract = {The current study was a replication and extension of a study
of infant imitative learning by Meltzoff (1995). Unlike the
18-month-old infants in that study (and other 18-month-olds
in the current study), the 12-month-olds in this study did
not frequently imitate unsuccessful goal-directed actions.
Also, both 12- and 18-month-old infants reproduced actions
more often when they observed the entire action and its
result than when they observed the result only. © 1999
ABLEX Publishing Corporation.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0163-6383(99)00002-8},
Key = {fds351954}
}
@article{fds351955,
Author = {Behrens, H and Tomasello, M},
Title = {And what about the Chinese?},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {22},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1014},
Year = {1999},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X99222224},
Abstract = {We discuss other recent studies on the acquisition of the
German plural that do not support the dual-mechanism model.
The attested overgeneralizations are not by default only,
nor completely random, but predictable from subregularities
based on the grammatical gender and the phonology of the
noun. In addition, the dual-mechanism model creates a number
of problems for acquisition (theory) rather than solving
existing ones.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X99222224},
Key = {fds351955}
}
@article{fds351956,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Striano, T and Rochat, P},
Title = {Do young children use objects as symbols?},
Journal = {British Journal of Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {17},
Number = {4},
Pages = {563-584},
Year = {1999},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/026151099165483},
Abstract = {Much of young children's symbolic play is heavily scaffolded
by adult symbolic action models, which children may imitate,
and by adult verbal scripts. The current studies attempted
to evaluate 18-35-month-old children's symbolic skills in
the absence of such scaffolding. In a study of symbol
comprehension, children were tested for their ability to
comprehend an adult's use of either a replica object or an
associated gesture to communicate which object in an array
she wanted. In a study of symbol production, children were
given some objects that afforded symbolic manipulations, but
without adult symbolic action models or verbal scripts. The
results of the two studies converged to suggest that
children below 2 years of age have symbolic skills with
gestures, but not with objects. It was also found that while
children at 26 months were able to use an object as a symbol
for another object, they had difficulties when the symbol
had another conventional use (e.g. a drinking cup used as a
hat). The findings are discussed in terms of DeLoache's dual
representation model, and a modification of that model is
proposed.},
Doi = {10.1348/026151099165483},
Key = {fds351956}
}
@article{fds351957,
Author = {Brooks, PJ and Tomasello, M and Dodson, K and Lewis,
LB},
Title = {Young children's overgeneralizations with fixed transitivity
verbs.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {70},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1325-1337},
Year = {1999},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00097},
Abstract = {The present study examined English-speaking children's
tendency to make argument structure overgeneralization
errors (e.g., I disappeared it). Children were exposed to
several English verbs of fixed transitivity (exclusively
intransitive or exclusively transitive) and then asked
questions that encouraged them to overgeneralize usage of
the verbs. Seventy-two children (24 in each of three age
groups: 3, 4/5, and 8 years of age) experienced four actions
performed by puppets. Each action had two verbs of similar
meaning associated with it in the context of the
experimental action: one more familiar to young children and
one less familiar. Children at all ages were more likely to
overgeneralize usage of verbs that were less familiar to
them, supporting the hypothesis that children's usage of
verbs in particular construction types becomes entrenched
over time. As children solidly learn the transitivity status
of particular verbs, they become more reluctant to use those
verbs in other argument structure constructions.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-8624.00097},
Key = {fds351957}
}
@article{fds351958,
Author = {Visalberghi, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Causal understanding in primates in physical and
psychological domain},
Journal = {Sistemi Intelligenti},
Volume = {11},
Number = {2},
Pages = {307-331},
Year = {1999},
Month = {August},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1422/3515},
Doi = {10.1422/3515},
Key = {fds351958}
}
@article{fds351959,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {A nonverbal false belief task: the performance of children
and great apes.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {70},
Number = {2},
Pages = {381-395},
Year = {1999},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00028},
Abstract = {A nonverbal task of false belief understanding was given to
4- and 5-year-old children (N = 28) and to two species of
great ape: chimpanzees and orangutans (N = 7). The task was
embedded in a series of finding games in which an adult (the
hider) hid a reward in one of two identical containers, and
another adult (the communicator) observed the hiding process
and attempted to help the participant by placing a marker on
the container that she believed to hold the reward. An
initial series of control trials ensured that participants
were able to use the marker to locate the reward, follow the
reward in both visible and invisible displacements, and
ignore the marker when they knew it to be incorrect. In the
crucial false belief trials, the communicator watched the
hiding process and then left the area, at which time the
hider switched the locations of the containers. When the
communicator returned, she marked the container at the
location where she had seen the reward hidden, which was
incorrect. The hider then gave the subject the opportunity
to find the sticker. Successful performance required
participants to reason as follows: the communicator placed
the marker where she saw the reward hidden; the container
that was at that location is now at the other location; so
the reward is at the other location. Children were also
given a verbal false belief task in the context of this same
hiding game. The two main results of the study were: (1)
children's performance on the verbal and nonverbal false
belief tasks were highly correlated (and both fit very
closely with age norms from previous studies), and (2) no
ape succeeded in the nonverbal false belief task even though
they succeeded in all of the control trials indicating
mastery of the general task demands.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-8624.00028},
Key = {fds351959}
}
@article{fds325205,
Author = {Itakura, S and Agnetta, B and Hare, B and Tomasello,
M},
Title = {Chimpanzee use of human and conspecific social cues to
locate hidden food},
Journal = {Developmental Science},
Volume = {2},
Number = {4},
Pages = {448-456},
Publisher = {WILEY},
Year = {1999},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-7687.00089},
Abstract = {Two studies are reported in which chimpanzees attempted to
use social cues to locate hidden food in one of two possible
hiding places. In the first study four chimpanzees were
exposed to a local enhancement cue (the informant approached
and looked to the location where food was hidden and then
remained beside it) and a gaze/point cue (the informant
gazed and manually pointed towards the location where the
food was hidden). Each cue was given by both a human
informant and a chimpanzee informant. In the second study 12
chimpanzees were exposed to a gaze direction cue in
combination with a vocal cue (the human informant gazed to
the hiding location and produced one of two different
vocalizations: a 'food-bark' or a human word-form). The
results were: (i) all subjects were quite skillful with the
local enhancement cue, no matter who produced it; (ii) few
subjects were skillful with the gaze/point cue, no matter
who produced it (most of these being individuals who had
been raised in infancy by humans); and (iii) most subjects
were skillful when the human gazed and vocalized at the
hiding place, with little difference between the two types
of vocal cue. Findings are discussed in terms of
chimpanzees' apparent need for additional cues, over and
above gaze direction cues, to indicate the presence of
food.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-7687.00089},
Key = {fds325205}
}
@article{fds325571,
Author = {Hare, B and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use human and conspecific
social cues to locate hidden food},
Journal = {Journal of Comparative Psychology},
Volume = {113},
Number = {2},
Pages = {X173-X177},
Year = {1999},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0735-7036.113.2.173},
Abstract = {Ten domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) of different breeds and
ages were exposed to 2 different social cues indicating the
location of hidden food, each provided by both a human
informant and a conspecific informant (for a total of 4
different social cues). For the local enhancement cue the
informant approached the location where food was hidden and
then stayed beside it. For the gaze and point cue, the
informant stood equidistant between 2 hiding locations and
bodily oriented and gazed toward the 1 in which food was
hidden (the human informant also pointed). Eight of the 10
subjects, including the one 6-month-old juvenile, were above
chance with 2 or more cues. Results are discussed in terms
of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic processes by means of
which dogs come to use social cues to locate
food.},
Doi = {10.1037//0735-7036.113.2.173},
Key = {fds325571}
}
@article{fds326036,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Hare, B and Agnetta, B},
Title = {Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, follow gaze direction
geometrically},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {58},
Number = {4},
Pages = {769-777},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {1999},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1999.1192},
Abstract = {Two experiments on chimpanzee gaze following are reported.
In the first, chimpanzee subjects watched as a human
experimenter looked around various types of barriers. The
subjects looked around each of the barriers more when the
human had done so than in a control condition (in which the
human looked-in another direction). In the second
experiment, chimpanzees watched as a human looked towards
the back of their cage. As they turned to follow the human's
gaze a distractor-object was presented. The chimpanzees
looked at the distractor while still following the human's
gaze to the back of the cage. These two experiments
effectively disconfirm the low-level model of chimpanzee
gaze following in which it is claimed that upon seeing
another animate being's gaze direction chimpanzees simply
turn in that direction and look around for something
interesting. Rather, they support the hypothesis that
chimpanzees follow the gaze direction of other animate
beings geometrically to specific locations, in much the same
way as human infants. The degree to which chimpanzees have a
mentalistic interpretation of the gaze and/or visual
experience of others is still an open question.},
Doi = {10.1006/anbe.1999.1192},
Key = {fds326036}
}
@article{fds351960,
Author = {Brooks, PJ and Tomasello, M},
Title = {How children constrain their argument structure
constructions},
Journal = {Language},
Volume = {75},
Number = {4},
Pages = {720-738},
Year = {1999},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/417731},
Abstract = {We tested two hypotheses about how English-speaking children
learn to avoid making argument structure errors such as
Don't giggle me. The first is that children base their usage
of verbs on membership in narrow-range semantic classes
(Pinker 1989). The second is that children make use of
indirect negative evidence in the form of alternative
expressions that preempt tendencies to overgeneralize.
Ninety-six children (32 each at 2.5, 4.5, and 6/7 years of
age) were introduced to two nonce verbs, one as a transitive
verb and one as an intransitive verb. One verb was from a
semantic class that can be used both transitively and
intransitively while the other was from a fixed transitivity
class. Half of the children were given preempting
alternatives with both verbs; for example, they heard a verb
in a simple transitive construction (as in Ernie's meeking
the car) and then they also heard it in a passive
construction - which enabled them to answer the question
'What's happening with the car?' with It's getting meeked
(rather than generalizing to the intransitive construction
with It's meeking). We found empirical support for the
constraining role of verb classes and of preemption, but
only for children 4.5 years of age and older. Results are
discussed in terms of a model of syntactic development in
which children begin with lexically specific linguistic
constructions and only gradually learn to differentiate
verbs as lexical items from argument structure constructions
as abstract linguistic entities.},
Doi = {10.2307/417731},
Key = {fds351960}
}
@article{fds351961,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The human adaptation for culture},
Journal = {Annual Review of Anthropology},
Volume = {28},
Pages = {509-529},
Year = {1999},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.28.1.509},
Abstract = {Human beings are biologically adapted for culture in ways
that other primates are not, as evidenced most clearly by
the fact that only human cultural traditions accumulate
modifications over historical time (the ratchet effect). The
key adaptation is one that enables individuals to understand
other individuals as intentional agents like the self. This
species-unique form of social cognition emerges in human
ontogeny at approximately 1 year of age, as infants begin to
engage with other persons in various kinds of joint
attentional activities involving gaze following, social
referencing, and gestural communication. Young children's
joint attentional skills then engender some uniquely
powerful forms of cultural learning, enabling the
acquisition of language, discourse skills, tool-use
practices, and other conventional activities. These novel
forms of cultural learning allow human beings to, in effect,
pool their cognitive resources both contemporaneously and
over historical time in ways that are unique in the animal
kingdom.},
Doi = {10.1146/annurev.anthro.28.1.509},
Key = {fds351961}
}
@article{fds351962,
Author = {Brooks, PJ and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children learn to produce passives with nonce
verbs.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {35},
Number = {1},
Pages = {29-44},
Year = {1999},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.35.1.29},
Abstract = {Younger and older children (mean ages = 2 years 11 months
and 3 years 5 months) learned 2 nonce verbs in a full
passive or active transitive construction. When asked
patient-focused questions encouraging passive-voice replies
(e.g., "What happened to the ball?") or agent-focused
questions encouraging active-voice replies (e.g., "What did
Elmo do?"), children used a variety of strategies to meet
the demands of the questions, usually without changing the
construction in which the verb occurred. In Study 2 in which
passive and active constructions were primed, 40% of the
almost 3-year-old children used an active-introduced verb in
a passive construction and 35% used a passive-introduced
verb in an active transitive construction when discourse
demands encouraged them to do so. Thus, before their 3rd
birthdays, some children have an understanding of the
passive and active transitive constructions general enough
to support productive usages with newly learned
verbs.},
Doi = {10.1037//0012-1649.35.1.29},
Key = {fds351962}
}
@article{fds351963,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Brooks, PJ and Stern, E},
Title = {Learning to produce passive utterances through
discourse},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {18},
Number = {53},
Pages = {223-237},
Year = {1998},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014272379801805306},
Abstract = {Two studies of English-speaking children's acquisition of
the passive construction are reported. In the first study
children at 3.0 and 3.5 years of age were taught to produce
full passive utterances with a nonce verb through rich
discourse interaction. All the older children learned to
produce a passive with the nonce verb, whereas only
two-thirds of the younger children learned to do this - and
they needed three times as many adult utterances to do so.
In the second study, also using a nonce verb, some
3.0-year-old children were given rich discourse interactions
containing truncated passives, passive questions, and by
phrases - all of which added up to a full passive - but they
never heard a full passive utterance as a whole. Other
children were given only models of full passive utterances
with no discourse scaffolding. Only children who heard full
passive utterances produced them. The children who
participated in rich discourse interactions produced
truncated passives (as they had heard). These results
demonstrate that children can learn to produce full passive
sentences with a nonce verb at 3 years of age, but, in
accordance with Tomasello's (1992) verb island hypothesis,
they tend to do so only within the syntactic constructions
in which they have heard adults using that verb. © Alpha
Academic.},
Doi = {10.1177/014272379801805306},
Key = {fds351963}
}
@article{fds325206,
Author = {Byrne, RW and Russon, AE},
Title = {Learning by imitation: a hierarchical approach.},
Journal = {The Behavioral and brain sciences},
Volume = {21},
Number = {5},
Pages = {667-684},
Year = {1998},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x98001745},
Abstract = {To explain social learning without invoking the cognitively
complex concept of imitation, many learning mechanisms have
been proposed. Borrowing an idea used routinely in cognitive
psychology, we argue that most of these alternatives can be
subsumed under a single process, priming, in which input
increases the activation of stored internal representations.
Imitation itself has generally been seen as a "special
faculty." This has diverted much research towards the
all-or-none question of whether an animal can imitate, with
disappointingly inconclusive results. In the great apes,
however, voluntary, learned behaviour is organized
hierarchically. This means that imitation can occur at
various levels, of which we single out two clearly distinct
ones: the "action level," a rather detailed and linear
specification of sequential acts, and the "program level," a
broader description of subroutine structure and the
hierarchical layout of a behavioural "program." Program
level imitation is a high-level, constructive mechanism,
adapted for the efficient learning of complex skills and
thus not evident in the simple manipulations used to test
for imitation in the laboratory. As examples, we describe
the food-preparation techniques of wild mountain gorillas
and the imitative behaviour of orangutans undergoing
"rehabilitation" to the wild. Representing and manipulating
relations between objects seems to be one basic building
block in their hierarchical programs. There is evidence that
great apes suffer from a stricter capacity limit than humans
in the hierarchical depth of planning. We re-interpret some
chimpanzee behaviour previously described as "emulation" and
suggest that all great apes may be able to imitate at the
program level. Action level imitation is seldom observed in
great ape skill learning, and may have a largely social
role, even in humans.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x98001745},
Key = {fds325206}
}
@article{fds351964,
Author = {Dodson, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Acquiring the transitive construction in English: the role
of animacy and pronouns.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {25},
Number = {3},
Pages = {605-622},
Year = {1998},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000998003535},
Abstract = {Twenty-four children between 2;5 and 3;1 were taught two
nonce verbs. Each verb was used multiple times by an adult
experimenter to refer to a highly transitive action
involving a mostly animate agent (including the child
herself) and a patient of varying animacy. One of the verbs
was modelled in the Two-Participants condition in which the
experimenter said: 'Look. Big Bird is dopping the boat'. The
other verb was modelled in the No-Participant condition in
which the experimenter named the Two-Participants but did
not use them as arguments of the novel verb: 'Look what Big
Bird is doing to the boat. It's called keefing'. It was
found that whereas many children produced transitive
sentences with the Two-Participants verb, only children
close to 3;0 produced transitive sentences with the
No-Participant verb. This age is somewhat younger than
previous studies in which young children were asked to
produce transitive sentences with two lexical nouns for the
two animate participants. Also, re-analyses of previously
published studies in which children learned novel verbs in
sentence frames without arguments found that the few
transitive sentences produced by children under 2;6 involved
either I or me as subject. One hypothesis is thus that as
young children in the third year of life begin to construct
a more abstract and verb-general transitive construction,
this construction initially contains only certain types of
participants expressed in only certain kinds of linguistic
forms.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000998003535},
Key = {fds351964}
}
@article{fds351965,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Distinguishing intentional from accidental actions in
orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes),
and human children (Homo sapiens).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {112},
Number = {2},
Pages = {192-206},
Year = {1998},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.112.2.192},
Abstract = {This study investigates the understanding of others'
intentions in 2- and 3-year-old children, chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes), and orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). During
training, subjects learned to use a discriminative cue to
select a baited box. During testing, the experimenter placed
a marker on top of the baited box to inform the subject of
the reward's location. However, the experimenter also
accidentally dropped the marker on top of an unbaited box,
so that during any given trial the experimenter marked 2
boxes, 1 intentionally and 1 accidentally. All 3 species
preferentially selected the box the experimenter had marked
intentionally (especially during the initial trials), with
3-year-old children presenting the most robust results.
These findings suggest that subjects understood something
about the experimenter's intentions. The authors speculate
that understanding of others' intentions may precede the
understanding of others' beliefs both at the ontogenetic and
phylogenetic levels.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.112.2.192},
Key = {fds351965}
}
@article{fds351966,
Author = {Visalberghi, E and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Primate causal understanding in the physical and
psychological domains},
Journal = {Behavioural Processes},
Volume = {42},
Number = {2-3},
Pages = {189-203},
Year = {1998},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0376-6357(97)00076-4},
Abstract = {Evidence for primates' understanding of causality is
presented and discussed. Understanding causality requires
the organism to understand not just that two events are
associated with one another in space and time, but also that
there is some 'mediating force' that binds the two events to
one another which may be used to predict or control those
events (e.g. a physical force such as gravity or a
psychological force such as an intention). In the physical
domain, studies of tool use indicate that capuchin monkeys
do not have a causal understanding of the functioning of
tools in terms of the physical forces involved, but rather
they learn to associate aspects of their own behavior with
the results it produces. Apes show some possible signs of
understanding the causal relations involved in tool use in
the sense that they may employ various forms of foresight in
approaching novel tasks, perhaps involving an understanding
of physical forces-although not to the extent of human
children. In the psychological domain, nonhuman primates
understand conspecifics as animate beings that generate
their own behavior and, thus, they appreciate that to
manipulate conspecifics communicative signals, and not
physical activities, are required. However, there is very
little evidence that nonhuman primates of any species
understand others as psychological beings with intentions
and other psychological states that mediate their behavioral
interactions with the world-as human children begin to do
sometime during their second year of life. More research,
using a wider range of problem-solving situations, is needed
if we are to become more precise in our understanding of how
primates understand the causal structure of the world around
them.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0376-6357(97)00076-4},
Key = {fds351966}
}
@article{fds326347,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J and Hare, B},
Title = {Five primate species follow the visual gaze of
conspecifics},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {55},
Number = {4},
Pages = {1063-1069},
Publisher = {Elsevier BV},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1997.0636},
Abstract = {Individuals from five primate species were tested
experimentally for their ability to follow the visual gaze
of conspecifics to an outside object. Subjects were from
captive social groups of chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, sooty
mangabeys, Cercocebus atys torquatus, rhesus macaques,
Macaca mulatta, stumptail macaques, M. arctoides, and
pigtail macaques, M. nemestrina. Experimental trials
consisted of an experimenter inducing one individual to look
at food being displayed, and then observing the reaction of
another individual (the subject) that was looking at that
individual (not the food). Control trials consisted of an
experimenter displaying the food in an identical manner when
the subject was alone. Individuals from all species reliably
followed the gaze of conspecifics, looking to the food about
80% of the time in experimental trials, compared with about
20% of the time in control trials. Results are discussed in
terms of both the proximate mechanisms that might be
involved and the adaptive functions that might be served by
gaze-following.},
Doi = {10.1006/anbe.1997.0636},
Key = {fds326347}
}
@article{fds351967,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Reference: Intending that others jointly
attend},
Journal = {Pragmatics and Cognition},
Volume = {6},
Number = {1-2},
Pages = {229-243},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pc.6.1-2.12tom},
Abstract = {My approach to reference focuses on naturally occuring
processes of communication, and in particular on
children’s earliest referential activities. I begin by
describing three different kinds of child gesture –
ritualizations, deictics, and symbolic gestures – and then
proceed to examine young children’s early word learning.
The account focuses on the joint attentional situations in
which young children learn their earliest gestures and
linguistic symbols and on the social-cognitive and cultural
learning processes involved in the different cases. © 1998
John Benjamins Publishing Company.},
Doi = {10.1075/pc.6.1-2.12tom},
Key = {fds351967}
}
@article{fds351968,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Brooks, PJ},
Title = {Young Children'S earliest transitive and intransitive
constructions},
Journal = {Cognitive Linguistics},
Volume = {9},
Number = {4},
Pages = {379-396},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1998.9.4.379},
Abstract = {Much of children's early syntactic development can be seen
as the acquisition of sentence-level constructions that
correspond to relatively complex events and states of
affairs. The ctirrent study was an attempt to determine the
relative concreteness (verb-specificity) or abstractness
(verb-generality) of such constructions for children just
beginning to produce large numbers of multi-word utterances.
Sixteen children at 2.0 years of age and sixteen children at
2.5 years of age participated (all English speaking). Each
child was taught two novel verbsfor a highly transitive
action: one in a transitive construction (Ernie is tamming
the car) and one in an intransitive construction (with
patient as subject: The ball is meeking). They were then
given o p rtunities to use their newly learned verbs, in
many cases in discourse situations that encouraged use of
the “opposite” construction (i.e., agentand
patient-focused questions). Results showed that 2.0-year-old
children almost never produced an utterance using a novel
verb in anything other t an the construction in which it had
been modeled. Children at 2.5 years of age were somewhat
more productive, but still the large majority of these
children avoided using the experimental verbs in nonmodeled
constructions. These results suggest that when
English-speaking children produce simple transitive and
intransitive utterances in their spontaneous speech, they
are doing so on a verb-specific basis (verb Island
constructions), schematizing more abstract constructions
only later as they discover patterns that apply across many
such lexically specific constructions. © 1998, Walter de
Gruyter. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1515/cogl.1998.9.4.379},
Key = {fds351968}
}
@article{fds351969,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Response to commentators},
Journal = {Journal of Child Language},
Volume = {25},
Number = {2},
Pages = {485-491},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305000998003511},
Doi = {10.1017/S0305000998003511},
Key = {fds351969}
}
@article{fds351970,
Author = {Ashley, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cooperative problem-solving and teaching in
preschoolers},
Journal = {Social Development},
Volume = {7},
Number = {2},
Pages = {143-163},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00059},
Abstract = {The current study investigated the ontogenetic origins of
children's skills of cooperative problem-solving in a task
involving two complementary roles. Participants were peer
dyads of 24, 30, 36, and 42 months of age. Primary dyads
were initially presented with an instrumental problem whose
solution required them to cooperate by coordinating two
complementary actions. To further investigate their
understanding of the task, these same dyads were then
presented with the same problem but with roles reversed.
Finally, after each of these primary participants had
demonstrated proficiency in both roles, each was separately
paired with a naive peer and given the opportunity to teach
the naive partner the task. A clear ontogenetic trend
emerged. Even with adult assistance, 24-month-old children
never became independently proficient at the task.
Thirty-and 36-month-old children became proficient mostly
independently, but only relatively slowly and without
demonstrating extensive amounts of behavioral coordination
or the use of explicitly directive language to facilitate
coordination. Although they did show evidence of recognizing
when a peer was new to the task, children of this age
engaged in little explicit teaching of naive peers. In
contrast, 42-month-old children mastered the task much more
quickly than the other children, responded much more quickly
and accurately when their roles were reversed, coordinated
both their actions and language in the task to a much
greater extent, and engaged in more explicit teaching of
naive peers. Results are discussed in terms of the
developing social cognitive skills that enable children from
2 to 4 years of age to understand other persons as mental
agents with whom they may share mental perspectives.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-9507.00059},
Key = {fds351970}
}
@article{fds351971,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Akhtar, N and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Fourteen- through 18-month-old infants differentially
imitate intentional and accidental actions},
Journal = {Infant Behavior and Development},
Volume = {21},
Number = {2},
Pages = {315-330},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0163-6383(98)90009-1},
Abstract = {This study explored infants' ability to discriminate
between, and their tendency to reproduce, the accidental and
intentional actions of others. Twenty 14- through
18-month-olds watched an adult perform a series of two-step
actions on objects that made interesting results occur. Some
of the modeled actions were marked vocally as intentional
("There!"), some were marked vocally as accidental
("Woops!"). Following each demonstration, infants were given
a chance to make the result occur themselves. Overall,
infants imitated almost twice as many of the adult's
intentional actions as her accidental ones. Infants before
age 18 months thus may understand something about the
intentions of other persons. This understanding represents
infants' first step toward adult-like social cognition and
underlies their acquisition of language and other cultural
skills. © 1998 Ablex Publishing Corporation.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0163-6383(98)90009-1},
Key = {fds351971}
}
@article{fds351972,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Uniquely primate, uniquely human},
Journal = {Developmental Science},
Volume = {1},
Number = {1},
Pages = {1-16},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-7687.00002},
Abstract = {Two hypotheses about primate cognition are proposed. First,
it is proposed that primates, but not other mammals,
understand categories of relations among external entities.
In the physical domain primates have special skills in tasks
such as oddity, transitivity, and relation matching that
require facility with relational categories; in the social
domain primates have special skills in understanding the
third-party social relationships that hold among other
individuals in their groups. Second, it is proposed that
humans, but not other primates, understand the causal and
intentional relations that hold among external entities. In
the physical domain only humans understand causal forces as
mediating the connection between sequentially ordered
events; in the social domain only humans understand the
behavior of others as intentionally directed and controlled
by desired outcomes. Both these uniquely primate and these
uniquely human cognitive skills are hypothesized to have
their origins in adaptations for negotiating complex social
interactions.},
Doi = {10.1111/1467-7687.00002},
Key = {fds351972}
}
@article{fds351973,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Nagell, K and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative
competence from 9 to 15 months of age.},
Journal = {Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development},
Volume = {63},
Number = {4},
Pages = {i-143},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1166214},
Abstract = {At around 1 year of age, human infants display a number of
new behaviors that seem to indicate a newly emerging
understanding of other persons as intentional beings whose
attention to outside objects may be shared, followed into,
and directed in various ways. These behaviors have mostly
been studied separately. In the current study, we
investigated the most important of these behaviors together
as they emerged in a single group of 24 infants between 9
and 15 months of age. At each of seven monthly visits, we
measured joint attentional engagement, gaze and point
following, imitation of two different kinds of actions on
objects, imperative and declarative gestures, and
comprehension and production of language. We also measured
several nonsocial-cognitive skills as a point of comparison.
We report two studies. The focus of the first study was the
initial emergence of infants' social-cognitive skills and
how these skills are related to one another developmentally.
We found a reliable pattern of emergence: Infants progressed
from sharing to following to directing others' attention and
behavior. The nonsocial skills did not emerge predictably in
this developmental sequence. Furthermore, correlational
analyses showed that the ages of emergence of all pairs of
the social-cognitive skills or their components were
inter-related. The focus of the second study was the social
interaction of infants and their mothers, especially with
regard to their skills of joint attentional engagement
(including mothers' use of language to follow into or direct
infants' attention) and how these skills related to infants'
early communicative competence. Our measures of
communicative competence included not only language
production, as in previous studies, but also language
comprehension and gesture production. It was found that two
measures--the amount of time infants spent in joint
engagement with their mothers and the degree to which
mothers used language that followed into their infant's
focus of attention--predicted infants' earliest skills of
gestural and linguistic communication. Results of the two
studies are discussed in terms of their implications for
theories of social-cognitive development, for theories of
language development, and for theories of the process by
means of which human children become fully participating
members of the cultural activities and processes into which
they are born.},
Doi = {10.2307/1166214},
Key = {fds351973}
}
@article{fds366603,
Author = {Boesch, C and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Chimpanzee and human cultures},
Journal = {Current Anthropology},
Volume = {39},
Number = {5},
Pages = {591-614},
Year = {1998},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/204785},
Abstract = {Culture has traditionally been attributed only to human
beings. Despite growing evidence of behavioral diversity in
wild chimpanzee populations, most anthropologists and
psychologists still deny culture to this animal species. We
argue here that culture is not monolithic but a set of
processes. These processes show much diversity both in the
social norms and models that determine which individuals
will be exposed to particular cultural variants and what
cultural variants will be present in the population and in
the social learning mechanisms that determine the fidelity
of transmission of the variants over time. Recognition of
the diversity of these processes is important because it
affects cultural dissemination, cultural evolution, and the
complexity of cultural artifacts. A comparison of chimpanzee
and human cultures shows many deep similarities, thus
suggesting that they share evolutionary roots. Two possible
differences between the two species are discussed. First,
thanks to indirect means of transmission such as language,
cultural dissemination is possible over greater stretches of
time and space in humans than in chimpanzees. Second, human
cultures rely more intensively than chimpanzee cultures on
cumulative cultural evolution through the ratchet effect,
which allows the accumulation of modifications over time and
produces more elaborate cultural artifacts. © 1998 by The
Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All
rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1086/204785},
Key = {fds366603}
}
@article{fds351974,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J and Gluckman, A},
Title = {Comprehension of novel communicative signs by apes and human
children.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {68},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1067-1080},
Year = {1997},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01985.x},
Abstract = {Forty-eight young children (2.5 and 3.0 years old) and 9
great apes (6 chimpanzees and 3 orangutans) participated in
a hiding-finding game. An adult human experimenter (the
Hider) hid a reward in 1 of 3 opaque containers aligned on a
wooden plank. Another adult experimenter (the Communicator)
attempted to help the subject find the reward by giving 1 of
3 types of communicative sign: (1) Pointing, for which she
placed her hand directly above the correct container with
index finger oriented down; (2) Marker, for which she placed
a small wooden block on top of the correct container; and
(3) Replica, for which she held up a perceptually identical
duplicate of the correct container. At both ages, children
were above chance in this finding game with all 3 types of
communicative sign, with Pointing being easiest (because
they knew it prior to the experiment), Marker being next
easiest, and Replica being most difficult. In contrast, no
ape was above chance for any of the communicative signs that
it did not know before the experiment (some had been trained
in the use of the marker previously, and one knew pointing),
nor was group performance above chance for any of the signs,
despite the fact that apes experienced three times as many
trials as children on each sign. Our explanation of these
results is that young children understand the communicative
intentions of other persons--although they may have more
difficulty comprehending the exact nature of those
intentions in some cases--whereas apes treat the behavioral
signs of others as predictive cues only (signals). This may
be because apes do not perceive and understand the
communicative intentions of others, at least not in a
human-like way.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01985.x},
Key = {fds351974}
}
@article{fds351975,
Author = {Akhtar, N and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's productivity with word order and verb
morphology.},
Journal = {Developmental psychology},
Volume = {33},
Number = {6},
Pages = {952-965},
Year = {1997},
Month = {November},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0012-1649.33.6.952},
Abstract = {Four studies examined English-speaking children's
productivity with word order and verb morphology. Two- and
3-year-olds were taught novel transitive verbs with
experimentally controlled argument structures. The younger
children neither used nor comprehended word order with these
verbs; older children comprehended and used word order
correctly to mark agents and patients of the novel verbs.
Children as young as 2 years 1 month added -ing but not -ed
to verb stems; older children were productive with both
inflections. These studies demonstrate that the present
progressive inflection is used productively before the
regular past tense marker and suggest that productivity with
word order may be independent of developments in verb
morphology. The findings are discussed in terms of M.
Tomasello's (1992a) Verb Island hypothesis and M. Rispoli's
(1991) notion of the mosaic acquisition of grammatical
relations.},
Doi = {10.1037//0012-1649.33.6.952},
Key = {fds351975}
}
@article{fds351976,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Akhtar, N and Dodson, K and Rekau,
L},
Title = {Differential productivity in young children's use of nouns
and verbs.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {24},
Number = {2},
Pages = {373-387},
Year = {1997},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000997003085},
Abstract = {A fundamental question of child language acquisition is
children's productivity with newly learned forms. The
current study addressed this question experimentally with
children just beginning to combine words. Ten children
between 1;6 and 1;11 were taught four new words, two nouns
and two verbs, over multiple sessions. All four words were
modelled in minimal syntactic contexts. The experimenter
gave children multiple opportunities to produce the words
and made attempts to elicit morphological endings (plural
for nouns, past tense for verbs). Overall, children combined
the novel nouns productively with already known words much
more often than they did the novel verbs-by many orders of
magnitude. Several children also pluralized a newly learned
noun, whereas none of them formed a past tense with a newly
learned verb. A follow-up study using a slightly different
methodology confirmed the finding of limited syntactic
productivity with verbs. Hypotheses accounting for this
asymmetry in the early use of nouns and verbs are
discussed.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000997003085},
Key = {fds351976}
}
@article{fds351977,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Camaioni, L},
Title = {A comparison of the gestural communication of apes and human
infants;},
Journal = {Human Development},
Volume = {40},
Number = {1},
Pages = {7-24},
Year = {1997},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000278540},
Abstract = {The naturally occurring gestures of chimpanzees and
prelinguistic human infants are compared. Considered as
special cases are apes raised by humans as they gesture to
humans, and children with autism. Overall, the most
important differences between the gestures of typically
developing children and the gestures of individuals from the
other three groups concern: (1) their predominant use of
triadic, distal gestures; (2) their extensive use of
declarative gestures, and (3) their use of imitative
learning in acquiring some gestures (symbolic or
referential), which implies that the gestures are understood
as bi-directional communicative conventions. These
differences all derive from the uniquely human form of
social cognition (i.e., knowledge of other minds) that first
emerges during the 2nd year of life and that enables human
infants to understand other persons as intentional agents
with whom they may share experience. Implications for the
origins and evolution of human culture and language are
discussed. © 1997 S. Karger AG, Basel.},
Doi = {10.1159/000278540},
Key = {fds351977}
}
@article{fds351978,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Strosberg, R and Akhtar, N},
Title = {Eighteen-month-old children learn words in non-ostensive
contexts.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {23},
Number = {1},
Pages = {157-176},
Year = {1996},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900010138},
Abstract = {Previous studies have demonstrated that children aged 2;0
can learn new words in a variety of non-ostensive contexts.
The current two studies were aimed at seeing if this was
also true of children just beginning to learn words at 1;6.
In the first study an adult interacted with 48 children. She
used a nonce word to announce her intention to find an
object ('Let's find the gazzer'), picked up and rejected an
object with obvious disappointment, and then gleefully found
the target object (using no language). Children learned the
new word as well in this condition as in a condition in
which the adult found the object immediately. In the second
study the adult first played several rounds of a finding
game with each of 60 children, in which it was first
established that one of several novel objects was always in
a very distinctive hiding place (a toy barn). The adult then
used a nonce word to announce her intention to find an
object ('Let's find the toma') and then proceeded to the
barn. In the key condition the barn was mysteriously
'locked'; the child thus never saw the target object after
the nonce word was introduced. Children learned the new word
as well in this condition as in a condition in which the
adult found the object immediately. The results of these two
studies suggest that from very early in language acquisition
children learn words not through passive, associative
processes, but rather through active attempts to understand
adult behaviour in a variety of action and discourse
contexts.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900010138},
Key = {fds351978}
}
@article{fds351979,
Author = {Akhtar, N and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds learn words for absent objects and
actions},
Journal = {British Journal of Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {14},
Number = {1},
Pages = {79-93},
Year = {1996},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-835x.1996.tb00695.x},
Abstract = {Two studies of word learning in 24-month-old children are
reported, one involving an object word (Study 1) and one
involving an action word (Study 2). In both studies,
non-verbal scripts of playing with novel objects/actions in
particular ways were established before the child was
exposed to any language models. Following this pre-training,
children heard an experimenter announce her intention to
either find an object or perform an action. In the referent
condition, children then saw the intended referent (object
or action) immediately after hearing the language model.
Children in the absent referent condition experienced the
same non-verbal scripts and language models, but never saw
the referent object or action after hearing the language
model: at the appropriate juncture in the script they were
told that the toy barn in which the target object had been
previously located was 'locked', or that the toy character
who had previously performed the target action was missing.
Comparisons with two control conditions indicated that
children were able to learn words for a novel object and a
novel action in both the referent and absent referent
conditions and, moreover, that learning was equivalent in
these two conditions. These results show quite clearly that
early lexical acquisition does not depend on temporal
contiguity between word and referent - or indeed any
perceptual pairing between word and referent at all - but
rather it relies on children's active understandings of a
speaker's referential intentions in particular discourse
contexts.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.2044-835x.1996.tb00695.x},
Key = {fds351979}
}
@article{fds351980,
Author = {Akhtar, N and Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The Role of Discourse Novelty in Early Word
Learning},
Journal = {Child Development},
Volume = {67},
Number = {2},
Pages = {635-645},
Year = {1996},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01756.x},
Abstract = {2 studies of word learning are reported. In Study 1,
24-month-old children and 2 adults played with 3 nameless
objects. These objects were placed in a clear box along with
a novel nameless object. The adults then displayed
excitement about the contents of the box and modeled a new
word. Comparison with a control condition indicated
significant learning of the new word for the novel object.
Study 2 followed the same procedure with one difference; the
children played with the novel object while the adults were
absent. Thus, at the time of the language model the target
object was novel only to the adults, not to the children.
Again subjects displayed significant learning of the new
word. This last finding suggests that 24-month-old children
understand that adults use language for things that are
novel to the discourse context and that this novelty is
determined from the speaker's point of view.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01756.x},
Key = {fds351980}
}
@article{fds351981,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The child's contribution to culture: A commentary on
Toomela},
Journal = {Culture and Psychology},
Volume = {2},
Number = {3},
Pages = {307-318},
Year = {1996},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354067X9600200306},
Abstract = {Toomela (1996) has emphasized the psychological dimensions
of the process by which human children become participants
in cultures. I support his arguments with observations of
chimpanzees, which are similar to humans in some ways but
still do not live culturally, and of human infants both
before and after they have the capacity to participate fully
in cultural activities. Toomela also proposes a new account
of the process of internalization in which language plays
the central role. I disagree somewhat with this account,
arguing that whereas language is the most powerful human
artifact potentiating internalization, other artifacts -
both material and symbolic - may serve the same function if
children are introduced to them in social interactions in
which others have intentions toward their intentional states
- and they know this. The central theoretical point of
Toomela's paper is that a comprehensive account of the human
species as a cultural species must focus not only on the
cultural collective, but also on individuals and their
psychological capacities.},
Doi = {10.1177/1354067X9600200306},
Key = {fds351981}
}
@article{fds351982,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Piagetian and Vygotskian Approaches to Language
Acquisition},
Journal = {Human Development},
Volume = {39},
Number = {5},
Pages = {269-276},
Year = {1996},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000278478},
Abstract = {Both Piaget and Vygotsky were centrally concerned with the
ontogenetic relationships between language, cognition, and
social life. Recently, researchers have drawn on their
observations and hypotheses to establish much closer links
between these phenomena than either theorist ever imagined.
In investigating the cognitive bases of early language, very
close links have been established between specific cognitive
achievements and the acquisition of certain types of early
words, for example between object permanence development and
the acquisition of words for disappearance and between means
ends development and the acquisition of words for
success/failure. In investigating the social bases of early
language, close links have been established between the
quantity and quality of joint attentional social
interactions in which a child and an adult engage and the
child’s early word learning skills. Despite their seminal
contributions to the study of early language development
along these two lines, neither Piaget nor Vygotsky fully
appreciated the skills of social cognition that underlie the
acqusition of language. © 1996 S. Karger AG,
Basel.},
Doi = {10.1159/000278478},
Key = {fds351982}
}
@article{fds351983,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Use of social information in the problem solving of
orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and human children (Homo
sapiens).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {109},
Number = {3},
Pages = {308-320},
Year = {1995},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.109.3.308},
Abstract = {Fourteen juvenile and adult orangutans and 24 3- and
4-year-old children participated in 4 studies on imitative
learning in a problem-solving situation. In all studies a
simple to operate apparatus was used, but its internal
mechanism was hidden from subjects to prevent individual
learning. In the 1st study, orangutans observed a human
demonstrator perform 1 of 4 actions on the apparatus and
obtain a reward; they subsequently showed no signs of
imitative learning. Similar results were obtained in a 2nd
study in which orangutan demonstrators were used. Similar
results were also obtained in a 3rd study in which a human
encouraged imitation from an orangutan that had previously
been taught to mimic arbitrary human actions. In a 4th
study, human 3- and 4-year-old children learned the task by
means of imitation.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.109.3.308},
Key = {fds351983}
}
@article{fds351984,
Author = {Carpenter, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Joint Attention and Imitative Learning in Children,
Chimpanzees, and Enculturated Chimpanzees},
Journal = {Social Development},
Volume = {4},
Number = {3},
Pages = {217-237},
Year = {1995},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.1995.tb00063.x},
Abstract = {In this study we compared the nature of the joint
attentional interactions that occurred as chimpanzees and
human children engaged with a human experimenter (E).
Subjects were three chimpanzees raised mostly with
conspecifics (mother‐reared), three chimpanzees raised in
a human‐like cultural environment (encultur‐ated), and
six 18‐month‐old human children. Of particular interest
were possible differences between the two groups of
chimpanzees that might have resulted from their different
ontogenetic histories. Observations were made as subjects
participated in an imitative learning task involving a
number of novel objects. Variables coded were such things as
subjects' looks to the object, looks to E, the coordination
of such looks in periods of joint engagement with E, and
gestural attempts to direct E's attention or behavior
(declaratives and imperatives). Results showed that
encultur‐ated chimpanzees were most similar to human
children in social interactions involv‐ing objects, for
example, in their attention to the object in compliance with
E's request, their joint attentional interactions during
less structured periods, and their use of declarative
gestures to direct E's attention to objects. They were not
similar to children, but rather resembled their
mother‐reared conspecifics, in the duration of their looks
to E's face. A positive relation between subjects' joint
attentional skills and their imitative learning skills was
found for both chimpanzee and human sub‐jects. It is
concluded that a human‐like sociocultural environment is
an essential component in the development of human‐like
social‐cognitive and joint attentional skills for
chimpanzees, and perhaps for human beings as well Copyright
© 1995, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9507.1995.tb00063.x},
Key = {fds351984}
}
@article{fds351985,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Commentary},
Journal = {Human Development},
Volume = {38},
Number = {1},
Pages = {46-52},
Year = {1995},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000278298},
Doi = {10.1159/000278298},
Key = {fds351985}
}
@article{fds351986,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Akhtar, N},
Title = {Two-year-olds use pragmatic cues to differentiate reference
to objects and actions},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {10},
Number = {2},
Pages = {201-224},
Year = {1995},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0885-2014(95)90009-8},
Abstract = {Previous studies have found that children can use
social-pragmatic cues to determine "which one" of several
objects or "which one' of several actions an adult intends
to indicate with a novel word. The current studies attempted
to determine whether children can also use such cues to
determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action, an
adult intends to indicate. In the first study, 27-month-old
children heard an adult use a nonce word in conjunction with
a nameless object while it was engaged in a nameless action.
The discourse situation leading into this naming event was
manipulated so that in one condition the target action was
the one new element in the discourse context at the time of
the naming event, and in another condition the target object
was the one new element. Results showed that children
learned the new word for whichever element was new to the
discourse context. The second study followed this same
general method, but in this case children in one condition
watched as an adult engaged in preparatory behaviors that
indicated her desire that the child perform the action
before she produced the novel word, whereas children in
another condition saw no such preparation. Results showed
that children who saw the action preparation learned the new
word for the action, whereas children who saw no preparation
learned the new word for the object. These two studies
demonstrate the important role of social-pragmatic
information in early word learning, and suggest that if
there is a Whole Object assumption in early lexical
acquisition, it is an assumption that may be very easily
overridden. © 1995.},
Doi = {10.1016/0885-2014(95)90009-8},
Key = {fds351986}
}
@article{fds351987,
Author = {Byrnl, RW and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Do rats ape?},
Journal = {Animal Behaviour},
Volume = {50},
Number = {5},
Pages = {1417-1420},
Year = {1995},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0003-3472(95)80056-5},
Doi = {10.1016/0003-3472(95)80056-5},
Key = {fds351987}
}
@article{fds351989,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Production and comprehension of referential pointing by
orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {108},
Number = {4},
Pages = {307-317},
Year = {1994},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.108.4.307},
Abstract = {We report 3 studies of the referential pointing of 2
orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Chantek was raised in an
enculturated environment; Puti, raised in a nursery, had a
more typical captive life. In Experiment 1, flexibility of
pointing behavior was investigated by requiring subjects to
point in novel circumstances (for an out-of-sight tool, not
food). In Experiment 2, we investigated the orangutans'
comprehension of the significance of a human point in
helping them to locate food. In Experiment 3, we
investigated whether these pointing subjects comprehended
that a human recipient must be looking for the point to
achieve its attention-directing goal. In all experiments the
enculturated orangutan showed better understanding of
pointing than the captive orangutan. This finding is
consistent with recent studies that have found differences
in the cognitive and social-cognitive abilities of apes that
have had different types of experience with
humans.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.108.4.307},
Key = {fds351989}
}
@article{fds351990,
Author = {Call, J and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The social learning of tool use by orangutans (Pongo
pygmaeus)},
Journal = {Human Evolution},
Volume = {9},
Number = {4},
Pages = {297-313},
Year = {1994},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02435516},
Abstract = {Very little is known about the social learning of orangutans
(Pongo pygmaeus), especially in the context of
problem-solving situations such as tool use. Sixteen
orangutans were presented with a rake-like tool and
desirable but out-of-reach food. Eight subjects observed a
human demonstrator use the tool in one way, while another
eight observed the demonstrator use the tool in another way.
Subjects behaved identically in the two experimental
conditions, showing no effect of the type of demonstration
observed. Analysis of individual learning curves suggested
that a large component of individual trial-and-error
learning was at work, even for two subjects who received
additional trials with an orangutan demonstrator. This
pattern of results suggests that subjects were paying
attention to the general functional relations in the task
and to the results obtained by the demonstrator, but not to
the actual methods of tool use demonstrated. It is concluded
that subjects in both conditions were employing emulation
learning, not imitative learning. © 1994 International
Institute for the Study of Man.},
Doi = {10.1007/BF02435516},
Key = {fds351990}
}
@article{fds351991,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Mervis, CB},
Title = {THE INSTRUMENT IS GREAT, BUT MEASURING COMPREHENSION IS
STILL A PROBLEM},
Journal = {Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development},
Volume = {59},
Number = {5},
Pages = {174-179},
Year = {1994},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.1994.tb00186.x},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1540-5834.1994.tb00186.x},
Key = {fds351991}
}
@article{fds351992,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Kruger, AC and Ratner, HH},
Title = {The role of emotions in cultural learning},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {17},
Number = {4},
Pages = {782-784},
Year = {1994},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00037195},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00037195},
Key = {fds351992}
}
@article{fds351993,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J and Nagell, K and Olguin, R and Carpenter,
M},
Title = {The learning and use of gestural signals by young
chimpanzees: A trans-generational study},
Journal = {Primates},
Volume = {35},
Number = {2},
Pages = {137-154},
Year = {1994},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02382050},
Abstract = {Observations of chimpanzee gestural communication are
reported. The observations represent the third longitudinal
time point of an ongoing study of the Yerkes Primate Center
Field Station chimpanzee group. In contrast to observations
at the first two time points, the current observations are
of a new generation of infants and juveniles. There were two
questions. The first concerned how young chimpanzees used
their gestures, with special focus on the flexibility or
intentionality displayed. It was found that youngsters quite
often used the same gesture in different contexts, and
different gestures in the same context. In addition, they
sometimes used gestures in combinations in a single social
encounter, these combinations did not convey intentions that
could not be conveyed by the component gestures, however. It
was also found that individuals adjusted their choice of
signals depending on the attentional state of the recipient.
The second question was how chimpanzees acquired their
gestural signals. In general, it was found that there was
little consistency in the use of gestures among individuals,
especially for non-play gestures, with much individual
variability both within and across generations. There were
also a number of idiosyncratic gestures used by single
individuals at each time point. It was concluded from these
results that youngsters were not imitatively learning their
communicatory gestures from conspecifics, but rather that
they were individually conventionalizing them with each
other. Implications of these findings for the understanding
of chimpanzee communication and social learning are
discussed. © 1994 Japan Monkey Centre.},
Doi = {10.1007/BF02382050},
Key = {fds351993}
}
@article{fds351994,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Barton, M},
Title = {Learning Words in Nonostensive Contexts},
Journal = {Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {30},
Number = {5},
Pages = {639-650},
Year = {1994},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.30.5.639},
Abstract = {Four word learning studies with 24-month-old children are
reported. In Studies 1 and 2, an adult used a novel word to
announce her intention to perform an action or to find an
object. It was found that a knowledge of what action or
object was impending-established through scripted events
before the word's introduction-was not necessary for
children to learn the words. Studies 3 and 4 focused on what
word learning cues children might be using in these
contexts. In Study 3, it was found that children learned a
novel verb for an intentional and not an accidental action.
In Study 4, it was found that children learned a novel noun
for an object the adult was searching for, not ones she had
rejected while searching. Because none of the best-known
constraints on lexical acquisition could have helped them in
these contexts, it was concluded that children were relying
on social-pragmatic cues to learn the new
words.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.30.5.639},
Key = {fds351994}
}
@article{fds366604,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Call, J},
Title = {Social cognition of monkeys and apes},
Journal = {American Journal of Physical Anthropology},
Volume = {37},
Number = {19 S},
Pages = {273-305},
Year = {1994},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330370610},
Abstract = {This paper reviews what is known about the social cognition
of monkeys and great apes. The literature reviewed is
divided into three main content areas: (1) social
interaction, including knowledge of individuals, knowledge
of social relationships, alliance formation, and
cooperation; (2) communication, including alarm calls, calls
for recruiting allies, gestures, and the “language”
skills of human‐raised apes; and (3) social learning,
including the “cultural transmission” of
food‐preparation behaviors, the social learning of tool
use, and the social learning of vocal and gestural
communication. Contrary to the hypotheses of a number of
recent investigators, we find no compelling differences in
the social cognition of monkeys and great apes. It is
possible that differences in the social behavior of these
two classes of primate are due to processes of nonsocial
cognition, and it is possible that the social behavior of
apes is more strongly influenced by human interaction and
training.© 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. Copyright © 1994
Wiley‐Liss, Inc., A Wiley Company},
Doi = {10.1002/ajpa.1330370610},
Key = {fds366604}
}
@article{fds351995,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Savage-Rumbaugh, S and Kruger,
AC},
Title = {Imitative learning of actions on objects by children,
chimpanzees, and enculturated chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {64},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1688-1705},
Year = {1993},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1993.tb04207.x},
Abstract = {In this study we compared the abilities of chimpanzees and
human children to imitatively learn novel actions on
objects. Of particular interest were possible differences
between chimpanzees raised mostly with conspecifics
(mother-reared) and chimpanzees raised in a human-like
cultural environment (enculturated). Subjects were thus 3
enculturated and 3 mother-reared chimpanzees, along with 8
18-month-old and 8 30-month-old human children. Each subject
was tested over a 2-day period with 16 novel objects. The
introduction of each object was preceded by a baseline
period in which the subject's natural proclivities toward
the object were determined. For 12 objects, a human
experimenter demonstrated first a simple and then a complex
novel action, instructing the subject in each case to "Do
what I do" (chimpanzees were prepared for the task
behaviorally as well). For the other 4 objects,
demonstration of a single action took place on the first day
and the subject's opportunity to imitate was delayed until
the second day, 48 hours later. Actions that a subject
produced in baseline were excluded from further analysis.
For each analyzed action, the subject's behavior was scored
as to whether it successfully reproduced (1) the end result
of the demonstrated action, and (2) the behavioral means
used by the demonstrator. Results showed that in immediate
imitation the mother-reared chimpanzees were much poorer
imitators than the enculturated chimpanzees and the human
children, who did not differ from one another. Surprisingly,
on the delay trials, the enculturated chimpanzees
significantly outperformed the other 3 groups. We conclude
from these results that a human-like sociocultural
environment is an essential component in the development of
human-like social-cognitive and imitative learning skills
for chimpanzees, and perhaps for human beings as
well.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.1993.tb04207.x},
Key = {fds351995}
}
@article{fds351996,
Author = {Nagell, K and Olguin, RS and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Processes of social learning in the tool use of chimpanzees
(Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo
sapiens).},
Journal = {Journal of comparative psychology (Washington, D.C. :
1983)},
Volume = {107},
Number = {2},
Pages = {174-186},
Year = {1993},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.107.2.174},
Abstract = {Common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and 2-year-old human
children (Homo sapiens) were presented with a rakelike tool
and a desirable but out-of-reach object. One group of
subjects observed a human demonstrator use the tool in one
way, and another group observed a demonstrator use the tool
in another way. Children in both cases did what the model
did. Chimpanzee subjects, however, behaved identically in
the 2 model conditions. Both groups performed better than
subjects who saw no demonstration. This pattern of results
suggest that the chimpanzees were paying attention to the
general functional relations in the task and to the results
obtained by the demonstrator but not to the actual methods
of tool use demonstrated. Human children were focused on the
demonstrator's actual methods of tool use (her behavior).
The different social learning processes used by the 2
species have implications for their different forms of
social organization.},
Doi = {10.1037/0735-7036.107.2.174},
Key = {fds351996}
}
@article{fds351997,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {It's imitation, not mimesis},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {16},
Number = {4},
Pages = {771-772},
Year = {1993},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00032921},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00032921},
Key = {fds351997}
}
@article{fds351998,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Olguin, R},
Title = {Twenty-three-month-old children have a grammatical category
of noun},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {8},
Number = {4},
Pages = {451-464},
Year = {1993},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(05)80004-8},
Abstract = {This study investigated experimentally the nature and
development of children's early productivity with nouns,
both in verb-argument structure and with plural morphology.
Eight 20- to 26-month-old boys and girls were, in the
context of playing a game over a several week period,
exposed to four novel nouns, modeled in experimentally
controlled ways. The question was whether, when, and in what
ways the children would become productive with these nouns
in their spontaneous speech, going beyond the particular
linguistic forms they had heard. In terms of verb-argument
structure, 7 of the 8 children used their nouns in
productive argument roles, that is, in semantic roles they
had not heard them used in. Five of the 8 children used the
plural morpheme productively with the novel nouns as well.
Implications for theories of grammatical category formation
are discussed. © 1993, Ablex Publishing Corporation, 355
Chestnut Street, Norwood, New Jersey 07648. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0885-2014(05)80004-8},
Key = {fds351998}
}
@article{fds351999,
Author = {Olguin, R and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Twenty-five-month-old children do not have a grammatical
category of verb},
Journal = {Cognitive Development},
Volume = {8},
Number = {3},
Pages = {245-272},
Year = {1993},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(93)80001-A},
Abstract = {This study investigated experimentally the nature and
development of children's early productivity with
verb-argument structure and verb morphology. Twenty-two to
25-month-old boys and girls were, in the context of playing
a game over a several week period, exposed to eight novel
verbs modeled with experimentally controlled argument
structures and verb inflections. The question was whether,
when, and in what ways the children would become productive
with these verbs in their spontaneous speech, going beyond
the particular linguistic forms they had heard. In terms of
verb-argument structure, the results showed that children
most often followed the surface structure of the model,
regardless of the argument they were trying to express.
Thus, when children had heard an argument expressed for a
verb, they almost always marked that argument correctly in
their own utterances; when they had not heard an argument
expressed for a particular verb, their correct marking
dropped to chance levels. The children showed no signs of
productive verb morphology, but they did use the newly
learned verbs in some creative ways involving noun-like uses
and the appending of locatives. Results are discussed in
terms of Tomasello's (1992) Verb Island hypothesis. © 1993
Ablex Publishing Corporation.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0885-2014(93)80001-A},
Key = {fds351999}
}
@article{fds352000,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Kruger, AC and Ratner, HH},
Title = {Cultural learning},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {16},
Number = {3},
Pages = {495-552},
Year = {1993},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0140525x0003123x},
Abstract = {This target article presents a theory of human cultural
learning. Cultural learning is identified with those
instances of social learning in which intersubjectivity or
perspective-taking plays a vital role, both in the original
learning process and in the resulting cognitive product.
Cultural learning manifests itself in three forms during
human ontogeny: imitative learning, instructed learning, and
collaborative learning - in that order. Evidence is provided
that this progression arises from the developmental ordering
of the underlying social-cognitive concepts and processes
involved. Imitative learning relies on a concept of
intentional agent and involves simple perspective-taking.
Instructed learning relies on a concept of mental agent and
involves alternating/coordinated perspective-taking
(intersubjectivity). Collaborative learning relies on a
concept of reflective agent and involves integrated
perspective-taking reflective intersubjectivity). A
comparison of normal children, autistic children and wild
and enculturated chimpanzees provides further evidence for
these correlations between social cognition and cultural
learning. Cultural learning is a uniquely human form of
social learning that allows for a fidelity of transmission
of behaviors and information among conspecifics not possible
in other forms of social learning, thereby providing the
psychological basis for cultural evolution.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0140525x0003123x},
Key = {fds352000}
}
@article{fds352001,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Kruger, AC},
Title = {Joint attention on actions: acquiring verbs in ostensive and
non-ostensive contexts.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {19},
Number = {2},
Pages = {311-333},
Year = {1992},
Month = {June},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900011430},
Abstract = {Two studies of verb learning are reported. The focus of both
studies was on children in their second year of life
learning verbs in various pragmatic contexts. Of particular
interest was the comparison of ostensive contexts--in which
word and referent were simultaneously present in the child's
perceptual field--to non-ostensive contexts. In a
naturalistic study of 24 children at 1;3 and 1;9, it was
found that mothers modelled verbs for their children most
often BEFORE the referent action actually occurred. Over 60%
of maternal verbs were used to refer to actions that mothers
wished children to perform or that they were anticipating
their performing (IMPENDING actions). Some verbs were also
used to refer to current actions (ONGOING actions) or
actions that had just been completed (COMPLETED actions).
Children responded with comprehension most often to
impending models. Impending and completed models, but not
ongoing models, were correlated with children's verb
vocabularies at 1;9. The second study was a lexical training
study of 48 two-year-olds. Children learned to produce a
novel verb best when it was modelled in the impending
condition. They learned to comprehend it equally well in the
impending and completed conditions. Children showed no signs
of superior learning in the ostensive (ongoing) learning
context. Results of the two studies are discussed in terms
of the different learning processes involved in acquiring
nouns and verbs, and, more broadly, in terms of a
social-pragmatic view of language acquisition in which the
ostensive teaching paradigm is but one of many contexts in
which children learn to establish a joint attentional focus
with mature language users.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900011430},
Key = {fds352001}
}
@article{fds352002,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The social bases of language acquisition},
Journal = {Social Development},
Volume = {1},
Number = {1},
Pages = {67-87},
Year = {1992},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.1992.tb00135.x},
Abstract = {A language is composed of conventional symbols shaped by
their social‐communicative functions. Children acquire
these symbols, both lexical and syntactic, in the context of
culturally constituted event structures that make salient
these functions. In the acquisition process children rely on
cultural learning skills (i.e., imitative learning). These
skills emanate from their ability to participate
intersubjectively with adults in cultural activities (i.e.,
joint attention), which underlies their ability to
understand the ways adults are using particular pieces of
language. The development of communicative competence as a
whole, including not only lexical and syntactic skills but
also various pragmatic skills, depends largely on feedback
about communicative efficacy that children receive from
different interactants. This feedback is used by children to
make further inferences about the conventional functional
significance of particular linguistic expressions. This
social‐pragmatic view of language acquisition obviates the
need for a priori, specifically linguistic, format
constraints on the language acquisition process. Copyright
© 1992, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9507.1992.tb00135.x},
Key = {fds352002}
}
@article{fds352003,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Author's response: On defining language: Replies to Shatz
and Ninio},
Journal = {Social Development},
Volume = {1},
Number = {2},
Pages = {159-162},
Year = {1992},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.1992.tb00121.x},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-9507.1992.tb00121.x},
Key = {fds352003}
}
@article{fds352004,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cognitive ethology comes of age},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {15},
Number = {1},
Pages = {168-169},
Year = {1992},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00068163},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00068163},
Key = {fds352004}
}
@article{fds352005,
Author = {SECULES, T and HERRON, C and TOMASELLO, M},
Title = {The Effect of Video Context on Foreign Language
Learning},
Journal = {The Modern Language Journal},
Volume = {76},
Number = {4},
Pages = {480-490},
Year = {1992},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1992.tb05396.x},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1540-4781.1992.tb05396.x},
Key = {fds352005}
}
@article{fds352006,
Author = {Mannle, S and Barton, M and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Two-year-olds' conversations with their mothers and
preschool-aged siblings},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {12},
Number = {34},
Pages = {57-71},
Year = {1992},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014272379201203404},
Abstract = {The pragmatics of sibling-infant and mother-infant
conversations were compared. Sixteen children, 22 to 26
months of age, were videotaped for 15 minutes in dyadic
interaction with their mothers and for 15 minutes in dyadic
interaction with their preschool-aged siblings.
Sibling-infant and mother-infant conversations were compared
on three dimensions: quantitative characteristics,
conversational style and conversational repair of potential
breakdowns. Compared with mothers and infants, siblings and
infants talked less and had shorter conversations. On an
individual level, siblings asked fewer questions of the
infants and issued more directives to them than did the
mothers. Moreover, siblings failed to repair disruptions in
conversations almost twice as often as mothers. The infants'
conversational behaviours, however, did not differ when
interacting with the siblings as opposed to the mothers.
These results indicate that preschool-aged siblings are not
yet adept at making the kinds of pragmatic adjustments in
their speech that scaffold infants in their early
conversational interactions. It is suggested that the
experience later- born infants have with less responsive
siblings may be valuable preparation for interacting with
strangers, especially peers, who share many characteristics
with siblings. © 1992, Sage Publications. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1177/014272379201203404},
Key = {fds352006}
}
@article{fds352007,
Author = {Barton, ME and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Joint Attention and Conversation in Mother‐Infant‐Sibling
Triads},
Journal = {Child Development},
Volume = {62},
Number = {3},
Pages = {517-529},
Year = {1991},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01548.x},
Abstract = {The current study investigated the general nature of joint
attentional and conversational interaction in
mother‐infant‐sibling triads. 9 19‐month‐old infants
and 9 24‐month‐old infants were videotaped during 20 min
of free play with their mothers and preschool‐aged
siblings around a common activity. Analyses revealed that
even 19‐month‐old infants were capable of participating
in triadic interactions and conversations, and that the
proportional frequency of both these measures increased with
age. Triadic conversations were nearly 3 times longer and
elicited nearly twice as many infant turns per conversation
as dyadic conversations. Infants were more likely to join
into an ongoing conversational topic than to initiate one
themselves, and they were more likely to take a turn in
those conversations if they were in a joint attentional
state with the speaker. Infants were just as likely to
respond to a comment or request directed to another person
as they were to one directed to themselves, indicating
reliable comprehension of language not addressed to them.
These results suggest that the mother‐infant‐sibling
interactive context differs in important ways from the
mother‐infant dyadic context and that it is a richer
language learning environment than previously supposed.
Copyright © 1991, Wiley Blackwell. All rights
reserved},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01548.x},
Key = {fds352007}
}
@article{fds352008,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Objects are analogous to words, not phonemes or grammatical
categories},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {14},
Number = {4},
Pages = {575-576},
Year = {1991},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00071466},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00071466},
Key = {fds352008}
}
@article{fds352009,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Herron, C},
Title = {A Reply to Beck and Eubank},
Journal = {Studies in Second Language Acquisition},
Volume = {13},
Number = {4},
Pages = {513-517},
Year = {1991},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100010317},
Abstract = {Beck and Eubank (1991) criticize our recent SSLA article
(Tomasello & Herron, 1989) on both theoretical and
methodological grounds. While we appreciate their attempt to
discuss and clarify important issues—and while they do
make several sound and very interesting points—in a number
of cases they seriously misrepresent our study. We will
attempt to address the criticisms in roughly the order in
which they were raised. © 1991, Cambridge University Press.
All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0272263100010317},
Key = {fds352009}
}
@article{fds352010,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Conti-Ramsden, G and Ewert, B},
Title = {Young children's conversations with their mothers and
fathers: differences in breakdown and repair.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {17},
Number = {1},
Pages = {115-130},
Year = {1990},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900013131},
Abstract = {In this study we compared the conversations of mothers and
fathers with their children at 1; 3 and 1; 9, with special
attention to breakdown-repair sequences. We found that,
overall, children and secondary caregiver fathers
experienced more communicative breakdowns than did children
and primary caregiver mothers. More specifically, fathers
requested clarification of their children more often than
did mothers, and they most often used a non-specific query
(e.g. What?). Mothers used more specific queries (e.g. Put
it where?) and were involved in more 'looped' sequences
involving multiple requests for clarification. Fathers also
failed to acknowledge child utterances more often than did
mothers. After a father non-acknowledgement, children tended
not to persist and when they did they often received further
non-acknowledgements; the dyad did not often return to the
child's original topic. After a maternal
non-acknowledgement, on the other hand, children persisted
and the dyad more often returned to its previous topic. The
results are interpreted as support for the Bridge Hypothesis
which claims that fathers present children with
communicative challenges that help prepare them for
communication with less familiar adults.},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900013131},
Key = {fds352010}
}
@article{fds366605,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Gust, DA and Evans, A},
Title = {Peer interaction in infant chimpanzees.},
Journal = {Folia primatologica; international journal of
primatology},
Volume = {55},
Number = {1},
Pages = {33-40},
Year = {1990},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000156495},
Abstract = {The peer interactions of 6 infant chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes) ranging in age from 18 to 50 months were
observed in a seminatural context. The infants and their
mothers lived as members of a captive social group at the
Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center. An analysis of
contact initiations between infants indicated that the most
preferred peer interactant was the youngest and the least
preferred was the oldest infant. Infants also initiated more
interactions with the offspring of adults that had the
closest relationships with both themselves and their
mothers. These results indicate that a number of factors may
influence the peer affiliations of infant chimpanzees,
including the age of the infant and the mother's social
relationships.},
Doi = {10.1159/000156495},
Key = {fds366605}
}
@article{fds352011,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Herron, C},
Title = {Feedback for language transfer errors the garden path
technique},
Journal = {Studies in Second Language Acquisition},
Volume = {11},
Number = {4},
Pages = {385-395},
Year = {1989},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100008408},
Abstract = {In this study we compared two methods for correcting
language transfer errors in the foreign language classroom.
Thirty-two English-speaking college students enrolled in two
sections of an introductory French course served as
subjects. Eight commonly encountered English-to-French
transfer errors were identified and randomly assigned to one
of two teaching conditions for one class section; each error
was assigned to the opposite condition for the other
section. In both teaching conditions students began by
translating English sentences into French. The sentences
were such that an L1 (first language) transfer strategy
produced correct translations (e.g., using savoir for some
uses of “to know”). A sentence for which the transfer
would not produce an adequate translation (e.g., a sentence
requiring connaître) was then introduced in one of two
ways. In one condition—what we have termed the Garden Path
condition—students were given the new sentence and asked
to translate as before. Their inevitable transfer error was
then immediately corrected by the teacher. In the control
condition students were simply given the correct French form
and told that it differed from the English pattern (they
were not given the opportunity to commit a transfer error).
Student learning of the non-transferable form was assessed
three times throughout the course of the semester, and at
all time points performance was better in the Garden Path
condition. We interpreted this finding as support for a
cognitive comparison model of second language acquisition.
© 1989, Cambridge University Press. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0272263100008408},
Key = {fds352011}
}
@article{fds352012,
Author = {Snow, CE and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Data on language input: Incomprehensible omission
indeed!},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {12},
Number = {2},
Pages = {357-358},
Year = {1989},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00049104},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00049104},
Key = {fds352012}
}
@article{fds352013,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Cognition as cause},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {12},
Number = {3},
Pages = {607-608},
Year = {1989},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00073738},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00073738},
Key = {fds352013}
}
@article{fds352014,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Gust, D and Frost, GT},
Title = {A longitudinal investigation of gestural communication in
young chimpanzees},
Journal = {Primates},
Volume = {30},
Number = {1},
Pages = {35-50},
Year = {1989},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02381209},
Abstract = {A longitudinal study of chimpanzee gestural communication is
reported. Subjects were seven 5- to 8-year-old members of a
semi-natural group at the Yerkes Field Station. These were
the same individuals observed by Tomasello et al. (1985)
four years previously. Nearly identical operational
definitions and observational procedures were used in the
two studies. Longitudinal comparisons between the two
observation periods revealed that the development of
chimpanzee gestural communication is best characterized as a
series of ontogenetic adaptations: as particular social
functions (e.g., nursing, playing, grooming, etc.) arise,
decline, or change, gestural communication follows suit.
Most gestures seem to be conventionalized by individuals in
direct social interaction with conspecifics. Some gestures
may be learned by "second-person imitation"-an individual
copying a behavior directed to it by another individual. No
evidence was found for "third-person imitation"-an
individual copying a gesture used between two other
individuals. Implications for the concept of chimpanzee
"culture" are discussed. © 1989 Japan Monkey
Centre.},
Doi = {10.1007/BF02381209},
Key = {fds352014}
}
@article{fds352015,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Mannle, S and Werdenschlag, L},
Title = {The effect of previously learned words on the child's
acquisition of words for similar referents.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {15},
Number = {3},
Pages = {505-515},
Year = {1988},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900012538},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900012538},
Key = {fds352015}
}
@article{fds352016,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Herron, C},
Title = {Down the Garden Path: Inducing and correcting
overgeneralization errors in the foreign language
classroom},
Journal = {Applied Psycholinguistics},
Volume = {9},
Number = {3},
Pages = {237-246},
Year = {1988},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0142716400007827},
Abstract = {In this study we compared two methods for teaching
grammatical exceptions in the foreign language classroom.
Thirty-nine students in two sections of an introductory
college French course served as subjects. Eight target
structures, exemplifying –exceptions to a rule,– were
randomly assigned to one of two teaching conditions for a
section taught in the spring; each structure was assigned to
the opposite teaching condition for a section taught the
following fall. In one condition we simply taught the
students the exception as an exception. In the other –
what we called the Garden Path condition – we presented
canonical exemplars encouraging students to induce the rule;
we then asked them to generate the form (which we knew to be
an exception) and then corrected their resulting
overgeneralization error. Analysis of subsequent formal
testing showed that students learned the exception better in
the Garden Path condition and that this advantage persisted
throughout the semesterlong course. We hypothesized that
this technique helped students to focus attention both on
the rule and on the features of the particular structure
that marked it as an exception. © 1988, Cambridge
University Press. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1017/S0142716400007827},
Key = {fds352016}
}
@article{fds352017,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Snow, CE},
Title = {Well-fed organisms still need feedback},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {11},
Number = {3},
Pages = {475-476},
Year = {1988},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00058568},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00058568},
Key = {fds352017}
}
@article{fds352018,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {The role of joint attentional processes in early language
development},
Journal = {Language Sciences},
Volume = {10},
Number = {1},
Pages = {69-88},
Year = {1988},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0388-0001(88)90006-X},
Abstract = {In this paper I examine the role of joint attentional
processes in the child's early lexical acquisition and
conversational interaction. In both cases I conclude that
relatively extended periods of adult-child joint attentional
focus on nonlinguistic entities, perhaps as manifest in
routines, scaffold the child's early language development.
On the other hand, adult directiveness - whether of child
behavior/attention or of the dyad's conversational topic -
has a negative effect on early language development. For
both lexical acquisition and conversational interaction some
findings from experimental studies are available to
supplement conclusions based on correlational evidence.
Based on these findings, I propose a developmental sequence
of joint attentional processes in early language development
and discuss the role of adults in the child's passage
through this sequence. © 1988.},
Doi = {10.1016/0388-0001(88)90006-X},
Key = {fds352018}
}
@article{fds352019,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Davis-Dasilva, M and Camak, L and Bard,
K},
Title = {Observational learning of tool-use by young
chimpanzees},
Journal = {Human Evolution},
Volume = {2},
Number = {2},
Pages = {175-183},
Year = {1987},
Month = {April},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02436405},
Abstract = {In the current study two groups of young chimpanzees (4-6
and 8-9 years old) were given a T-bar and a food item that
could only be reached by using the T-bar. Experimental
subjects were given the opportunity to observe an adult
using the stick as a tool to obtain the food; control
subjects were exposed to the adult but were given no
demonstration. Subjects in the older group did not learn to
use the tool. Subjects in the younger group who were exposed
to the demonstrator learned to use the stick as a tool much
more readily than those who were not. None of the subjects
demonstrated an ability to imitatively copy the
demonstrator's precise behavioral strategies. More than
simple stimulus enhancement was involved, however, since
both groups manipulated the T-bar, but only experimental
subjects used it in its function as a tool. Our findings
complement naturalistic observations in suggesting that
chimpanzee tool-use is in some sense «culturally
transmitted» - though perhaps not in the same sense as
social-conventional behaviors for which precise copying of
conspecifics is crucial. © 1987 Editrice II
Sedicesimo.},
Doi = {10.1007/BF02436405},
Key = {fds352019}
}
@article{fds352507,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Learning to use prepositions: a case study.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {14},
Number = {1},
Pages = {79-98},
Year = {1987},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900012745},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900012745},
Key = {fds352507}
}
@article{fds352020,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Why the left hand?},
Journal = {Behavioral and Brain Sciences},
Volume = {10},
Number = {2},
Pages = {286-287},
Year = {1987},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00047919},
Doi = {10.1017/S0140525X00047919},
Key = {fds352020}
}
@article{fds352021,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Farrar, MJ},
Title = {Joint attention and early language.},
Journal = {Child development},
Volume = {57},
Number = {6},
Pages = {1454-1463},
Year = {1986},
Month = {December},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1986.tb00470.x},
Abstract = {This paper reports 2 studies that explore the role of joint
attentional processes in the child's acquisition of
language. In the first study, 24 children were videotaped at
15 and 21 months of age in naturalistic interaction with
their mothers. Episodes of joint attentional focus between
mother and child--for example, joint play with an
object--were identified. Inside, as opposed to outside,
these episodes both mothers and children produced more
utterances, mothers used shorter sentences and more
comments, and dyads engaged in longer conversations. Inside
joint episodes maternal references to objects that were
already the child's focus of attention were positively
correlated with the child's vocabulary at 21 months, while
object references that attempted to redirect the child's
attention were negatively correlated. No measures from
outside these episodes related to child language. In an
experimental study, an adult attempted to teach novel words
to 10 17-month-old children. Words referring to objects on
which the child's attention was already focused were learned
better than words presented in an attempt to redirect the
child's attentional focus.},
Doi = {10.1111/j.1467-8624.1986.tb00470.x},
Key = {fds352021}
}
@article{fds352022,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Farrar, MJ},
Title = {Object permanence and relational words: a lexical training
study.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {13},
Number = {3},
Pages = {495-505},
Year = {1986},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s030500090000684x},
Doi = {10.1017/s030500090000684x},
Key = {fds352022}
}
@article{fds352023,
Author = {Kruger, AC and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Transactive Discussions With Peers and Adults},
Journal = {Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {22},
Number = {5},
Pages = {681-685},
Year = {1986},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.22.5.681},
Abstract = {Piaget hypothesized that peer and adult-child discussions of
moral dilemmas are qualitatively different. He asserted that
children are more likely to use reasoning when interacting
with peers. To test this hypothesis, the present study
compared the interactive styles of child-child and
adult-child dyads engaged in discussions of moral dilemmas,
focusing on the use of logical operations (transacts).
Forty-eight female subjects, ages 7 and 11 years, were
paired with either a female agemate or their mother.
Children used transacts in a higher proportion of their
conversational turns when interacting with peers than when
interacting with mothers. Subjects produced proportionally
more transactive responses when interacting with mothers
because mothers produced proportionally more requests for
idea clarification than did peer partners. Self-generated
transacts, on the other hand, were produced proportionally
more often with peers. Furthermore, when paired with peers,
children produced transactive statements that operated on
the partner's logic more often, rather than clarifying their
own logic. These results support Piaget's contention that
moral discussions with peers feature a more spontaneous use
of reasoning than do discussions with adults. © 1986
American Psychological Association.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.22.5.681},
Key = {fds352023}
}
@article{fds352024,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Mannle, S and Kruger, AC},
Title = {Linguistic Environment of 1- to 2-Year-Old
Twins},
Journal = {Developmental Psychology},
Volume = {22},
Number = {2},
Pages = {169-176},
Year = {1986},
Month = {March},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.22.2.169},
Abstract = {The current study investigated differences in the language
learning environments of singletons and twins, with special
reference to pragmatic factors that might be expected to
differ in dyadic and triadic interactive situations. Six
twin pairs and 12 singleton children (all firstborn) were
observed in natural interactions with their mothers, once at
15 months of age and again at 21 months of age. Twins were
lower than singletons on all measures of language
development. The language learning environments of the two
groups differed as well. Although twin mothers spoke and
interacted with their children as much as singleton mothers
when twins were analyzed together, when analyzed from the
point of view of the individual twin child, twin children
received less speech directed specifically to them,
participated in fewer and shorter episodes of joint
attentional focus, and had fewer and shorter conversations
with their mothers. In addition, twin mothers were more
directive in their interactional styles. Correlational
analyses indicated that variation of these language learning
environment factors for the sample as a whole, as well as
variation for some of these factors within the twin group
itself, was related to early language growth. It is proposed
that both the quantitative and qualitative differences
observed in the language learning environments of singletons
and twins derive from the nature of the triadic situation
and that these differences have important effects on the
child's early language development. © 1986 American
Psychological Association.},
Doi = {10.1037/0012-1649.22.2.169},
Key = {fds352024}
}
@article{fds352025,
Author = {Anselmi, D and Tomasello, M and Acunzo, M},
Title = {Young children's responses to neutral and specific
contingent queries.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {13},
Number = {1},
Pages = {135-144},
Year = {1986},
Month = {February},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900000349},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900000349},
Key = {fds352025}
}
@article{fds352026,
Author = {Evans, A and Tomasello, M},
Title = {Evidence for social referencing in young chimpanzees (Pan
troglodytes).},
Journal = {Folia primatologica; international journal of
primatology},
Volume = {47},
Number = {1},
Pages = {49-54},
Year = {1986},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000156263},
Abstract = {A captive chimpanzee group was observed in order to
determine the extent to which the social interactions of the
infants and juveniles (18-50 months) were affected by their
mothers' relationships with other adult group members. It
was found that the young chimpanzees initiated more
interactions with adults who interacted more with their
mothers. A vast majority of those interactions occurred at
significant distances from the mother. It is argued that
these data imply a social-cognitive ability in young
chimpanzees closely related to the human infant's ability to
use its mother in 'social referencing'.},
Doi = {10.1159/000156263},
Key = {fds352026}
}
@article{fds352027,
Author = {Tomasello, M and George, BL and Kruger, AC and Jeffrey, M and Farrar, and Evans, A},
Title = {The development of gestural communication in young
chimpanzees},
Journal = {Journal of Human Evolution},
Volume = {14},
Number = {2},
Pages = {175-186},
Year = {1985},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2484(85)80005-1},
Abstract = {Plooij (Action, Gesture and Symbol, Academic Press 1978;
Before Speech, C.U.P. 1979) described some
intentionally-produced communicatory gestures used by
one-year-old chimpanzees on the Gombe Stream Reserve. The
current study investigated the use of this type of gesture
at later developmental periods. Subjects were five infant
and juvenile chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) living in a
semi-natural group at the Yerkes Regional Primate Center
Field Station. On the basis of naturalistic observations,
three stages in the development of communicatory gestures
were determined: (1) One-year-old infants used some
gestures, but only in an immature form and only with their
mothers or with peers; (2) Two-year-olds produced more
gestures which were clearly intentional and conventional
(they waited for a response), and they directed them to all
group members; (3) Three-year-olds used a wider variety of
gestures, and they supplemented them with a
"gaze-alternation" behavior which indicated even more
clearly the goal of the communication. Many of the gestures
used by infants and juveniles were not used by adults, thus
indicating a significance confined to specific developmental
periods. This contradicts the commonly-held assumption (e.g.
Van Lawick-Goodall, 1967) that the developmental process is
one in which young chimpanzees come gradually to learn a
pre-existing set of adult communicatory gestures. From this
and other evidence, it is argued that, while some of the
gestures are learned observationally, many are learned
through a process of "direct convention-alization" between
animals, and others rely on both of these processes. © 1985
Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited.},
Doi = {10.1016/S0047-2484(85)80005-1},
Key = {fds352027}
}
@article{fds352028,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Farrar, MJ},
Title = {Cognitive bases of lexical development: object permanence
and relational words.},
Journal = {Journal of child language},
Volume = {11},
Number = {3},
Pages = {477-493},
Year = {1984},
Month = {October},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900005900},
Doi = {10.1017/s0305000900005900},
Key = {fds352028}
}
@article{fds352029,
Author = {Tomasello, M and Farrar, MJ and Dines, J},
Title = {Children's speech revisions for a familiar and an unfamiliar
adult.},
Journal = {Journal of speech and hearing research},
Volume = {27},
Number = {3},
Pages = {359-363},
Year = {1984},
Month = {September},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/jshr.2703.359},
Abstract = {Initial characterizations of the communicative abilities of
preschoolers stressed their egocentric nature. Recently,
however, even 2-year-olds have been observed to adjust their
speech appropriately in situations in which the listener
provides feedback by signaling noncomprehension. The current
study had an adult signal noncomprehension to the requests
of 2-year-old Stage I and Stage II children. Each child
interacted with a familiar (mother) and an unfamiliar adult.
The children repeated their requests about one third of the
time and revised them about two thirds of the time. Stage I
children elaborated their requests significantly more often
than Stage II children. The familiarity of the adult
listener had no effect on the way Stage II children revised
their requests, but the Stage I children's revisions
contained novel lexical items more often when they were
interacting with the unfamiliar adult. Both of these
findings may have resulted from the fact that the more
conversationally skilled Stage II children relied on
verbal-conversational cues, which were the same for both
adult interactants in this situation. The Stage I children
may have been less aware of these conversational cues,
relying on general social cues such as familiarity of the
interactant. The results are discussed in terms of the
potential role of different types of adults in the language
acquisition process.},
Doi = {10.1044/jshr.2703.359},
Key = {fds352029}
}
@article{fds352030,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Young children's coordination of gestural and linguistic
reference},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {5},
Number = {15},
Pages = {199-209},
Year = {1984},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014272378400501503},
Abstract = {The current study investigated the relationship between
young children's linguistic and nonlinguistic communicative
strategies. Twenty-three children, 20-44 months of age,
served as subjects. In a naturalistic setting, an adult gave
signs of noncomprehension (a contingent query) to each of
the child's object references. The child's original
linguistic reference and use of gestures were recorded and
compared to his/her subsequent linguistic and gestural
responses to the adult query. Results showed that the
children used gestures more often with pronouns than with
nouns: either to clarify a linguistic reference from the
original utterance or to supplement a linguistic response to
the adult query. This would imply that two- to three-year-
old children are aware of the communicative principle that
pronouns 'need' gestures more than nouns, and more
generally, that they are capable of coordinating their
linguistic and nonlinguistic communi cative strategies. ©
1984, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1177/014272378400501503},
Key = {fds352030}
}
@article{fds352031,
Author = {George, BL and Tomasello, M},
Title = {The effect of variation in sentence length on young
children's attention and comprehension},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {5},
Number = {14},
Pages = {115-127},
Year = {1984},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014272378400501403},
Abstract = {The effect of sentence length on children's attention and
com prehension was studied. Twenty-five two- to
five-year-olds were placed into three groups, High, Middle,
and Low, based on their mean length of utterance (MLU).
Subsequently, each child watched three videotaped stories,
each having the same number of words but a different MLU.
The time the child spent gazing at the monitor was measured.
Comprehension was measured by a picture choice task. Results
indicated that the High group attended most to the Long
Level, comprehended obvious content best at the Long Level,
and comprehended subtle content best at the Medium Level;
the Low group attended most to the Medium Level and
comprehended little. It was concluded that both input level
and child level differentially affect attention and
comprehension. © 1984, Sage Publications. All rights
reserved.},
Doi = {10.1177/014272378400501403},
Key = {fds352031}
}
@article{fds352032,
Author = {Tomasello, M},
Title = {Joint attention and lexical acquisition style},
Journal = {First Language},
Volume = {4},
Number = {12},
Pages = {197-211},
Year = {1983},
Month = {January},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/014272378300401202},
Abstract = {Recent research has documented systematic individual
differences in early lexical development. The current study
investigated the relation ship of these differences to
differences in the way mothers and children regulate each
other's attentional states. Mothers of 6 one-year-olds kept
diary records and were videotaped with their children at
monthly intervals as well. Language measures from the diary
were related to measures of attention manipulation and
maintenance derived from a coding of the videotaped
interactions. Results showed that when mothers initiated
interactions by directing their child's attention, rather
than by following into it, their child learned fewer object
labels and more personal-social words. Dyads who maintained
sustained bouts of joint attentional focus had children with
larger vocabularies overall. It was concluded that the way
mothers and children regulate each other's attention is an
important factor in children's early lexical development. ©
1983, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.},
Doi = {10.1177/014272378300401202},
Key = {fds352032}
}
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