Early social experience predicts referential communicative adjustments in five-year-old children.

ABSTRACT: A large body of work has focused on children's ability to attribute mental states to other people, and whether these abilities are influenced by the extent and nature of children's social interactions. However, it remains largely unknown which developmental factors shape children's ability to influence the mental states of others. Building on the suggestion that collaborative experiences early in life might be crucial for the emergence of mental coordination abilities, here we assess the relative contribution of social exposure to familial and non-familial agents on children's communicative adjustments to their mental model of an addressee ('audience design'). During an online interactive game, five-year-olds spontaneously organized their non-verbal communicative behaviors according to the

SUBMITTER: Stolk A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3757022 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature