Mapping Words to the World: Adults, but not Children, Understand How Mismatching Descriptions Refer

How do children learn to connect expressions (e.g., “that red apple”) to the real-world objects they refer to? The dominant view in developmental psychology is that children rely on descriptive information, “red” and “apple.” In contrast, linguistic theories of the adult language attribute primacy to grammatical elements: words such as “that” or “another” first establish the status of potential referents within the discourse context (old or new) before descriptions can factor in. These theories predict that reference can succeed even when the description does not match the referent. We explored this novel prediction in adults and children. Over four experiments, we found that (a) adults relied on the articles to identify the referent, even when the description did not fit, consistent with grammar-first accounts; (b) consistent with description-first accounts, and unlike adults, 3- to 5-year-old children prioritized the descriptions provided by nouns and adjectives, despite being sensitive to grammatical information. This suggests that children connect expressions to referents differently from adults. © 2024 American Psychological Association