The wisest or the nicest? The influence of speaker certainty and affect in word learning

Abstract

This study aimed to find out whether speaker certainty of the interlocutor and affect towards the interlocutor could guide children in the word learning process. In three experiments with 4- to 6-year-old children, two handpuppets labeled novel objects. It was found that children tend to learn new words from a certain speaker rather than from an uncertain speaker, but they had no significant preference for learning from a kind speaker. When both cues were combined, it was found that children prefer an unkind and certain speaker over a kind and uncertain speaker, showing that speaker certainty leads to stronger learning preferences than affect. However, kind and certain speakers were preferred most, indicating that affect has a small additive effect. A posttest in which children had to recall which object belonged to which label showed that many of the new links between labels and objects were enduring.