Resolving Ambiguity from Competing Spatial Frames of Reference

• Main Authors: Codd, Judith, Bialystok, Ellen
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 01.04.1985
• Subjects: Adults; Age Differences; Ambiguity; Children; Cognitive Ability; Cognitive Development; Cues; Predicates; Prepositions; Referents (Linguistics); Spatial Ability; Spatial Context; Spatial Cues; Spatial Relationships (Sentences)

A 2-part investigation was conducted to examine the ways children resolve the inherent ambiguity of spatial descriptions in terms of cues indicated by the three constituents of spatial propositions: predicate, referent, and relatum. In the first study, it was hypothesized that certain objects, structural markers, and definite articles accompanying the predicate would increase the incidence of intrinsic object-related interpretations of spatial descriptions. A total of 30 male and 30 female subjects participated in the study. Of these, 45 were nursery school children in three age groups (mean ages of 3.3, 4.5, and 6r.5 years). Participating adults ranged in age from 19 to 62 years. Tasks included two verbal items to assess the use of definiteness in linguistic referencing and 24 items to examine the interpretations of ambiguous spatial descriptions. Findings indicated that, in contrast to the other groups, young children's interpretations of spatial locatives rely most heavily on the intrinsic features of the objects being manipulated. Although the 5-year-olds' responses were different from those of the two younger groups, their performance was not like that of adults. Accordingly, a second study was conducted to follow changes across the next 2 years. Mean ages of the 23 males and 22 females assigned to three age groups were 5.6, 6.9, and 7.9. Different cues were found to be relevant for the different ages examined. The 5-year-olds responded according to the object and the marker, while the 6- and 7-year-olds responded according to the presence of the definite article in the predicate. (RH)