Children's comprehension of deceptive points

Abstract

This study investigated children's ability to comprehend deceptive point gestures. Thirty 3‐4 1/2‐year‐olds participated in a game in which a sticker was hidden under one of two containers. A confederate provided misleading clues about the location of the sticker by either pointing to or placing a marker on the container without the sticker. Across ages, children performed less well when the clue was the point than when it was the marker. They were able to use the misleading marker cue, learning to look under the unmarked container. However, they could not do this for the misleading point. These results concur with those from studies of point production (Carlson, Moses & Hix, 1998) in indicating that deceptive pointing may be a misleading measure of children's abilities. At a very early age children learn the communicative value of the point gesture. This knowledge may become so entrenched that children have difficulty interpreting points in a novel manner.

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