Preschoolers use information about speakers’ desires to learn new words

This research investigates preschoolers’ use of desires for word learning. Three-year-old children were shown pairs of novel toys and were asked about their own desire and told about a researcher's desire. For half of the children the researcher liked the same object they did and for the other half the researcher liked a different object. The researcher then used a novel label in stating her desire to play with the toy. Children tracked others’ verbally presented desires and showed clear evidence of label learning. These findings add to a body of work clarifying the robust and flexible word learning skills of preschoolers.