ABSTRACT

Children achieve their first language milestones initially in gesture and prosody before they do so in speech. However, little is known about the potential precursor role of those features later in development when children start using more complex linguistic skills. In this study, we explore how children’s ability to reflect on their degree of uncertainty develops. A total of 40 Catalan preschool children (and 10 adults) took part in a game in which they had to guess the identity of ten objects which they could touch but not see and then state how certain they were about each guess. An analysis of the children’s reflections on their own uncertainty showed that (a) when preschoolers take a stance, they start to use multimodal uncertainty signals accurately before they are able to self-report their own level of (un)certainty; (b) they use epistemic prosodic and gestural markers before they start using lexical cues; and (c) multimodal cues signaling knowledge state become increasingly more complex over time. These findings suggest that preschoolers’ expression of knowledge states through gestures and prosody reflects an early epistemic sensitivity which develops as they get older.

摘要

儿童首先要通过手势和韵律达到他们的第一语言里程碑，然后再通过语音实现。但是，当孩子们开始使用更复杂的语言技能时，对于这些功能在开发中的潜在前体角色知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们探讨了儿童反思不确定性程度的能力如何发展。总共40名加泰罗尼亚语学龄前儿童（和10名成人）参加了一场游戏，他们必须猜测他们可以触摸但看不到的十个物体的身份，然后陈述他们对每个猜测的确定程度。对孩子对自己不确定性的思考进行的分析表明：（a）当学龄前儿童采取立场时，他们开始准确地使用多模式不确定性信号，然后才能自我报告自己的不确定性水平；（b）在开始使用词汇提示之前，他们使用了认知韵律和手势标记；随着时间的流逝，多模态线索表明知识状态变得越来越复杂。这些发现表明，学龄前儿童通过手势和韵律对知识状态的表达反映出他们随着年龄的增长而产生的早期认知敏感性。