How adults understand what young children say.

ABSTRACT: Children's early speech often bears little resemblance to that of adults, and yet parents and other caregivers are able to interpret that speech and react accordingly. Here we investigate how adult listeners' inferences reflect sophisticated beliefs about what children are trying to communicate, as well as how children are likely to pronounce words. Using a Bayesian framework for modelling spoken word recognition, we find that computational models can replicate adult interpretations of children's speech only when they include strong, context-specific prior expectations about the messages that children will want to communicate. This points to a critical role of adult cognitive processes in supporting early communication and reveals how children can actively prompt adults to take actions on

SUBMITTER: Meylan SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11033618 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature