Effects of two types of familiarity on children's referential communication abilities |
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| Abstract: | Stimulus familiarity has been shown to facilitate children's performance on referential communication tasks. The facilitative effects of stimulus familiarity could result either from prior stimulus recognizability or from immediate experience with experimental stimuli. The present study separated the effects of stimulus recognizability and experience. Kindergarten and third grade children communicated about both familiar and novel stimuli. Half the children were exposed to both types of stimuli prior to participation. The results indicated that older children chose the correct referent more often than younger children; children who received experience performed better than children who did not, and familiar stimuli were described more accurately than novel stimuli. The effects of stimulus recognizability and experience were independent. Third‐grade listeners were more likely to ask for additional information than kindergarten listeners, and third‐grade speakers tended to respond to such requests more often by providing new information. Results were discussed in terms of the independence of stimulus recognizability and experimental experience. |
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