How do adults and children process referentially ambiguous pronouns?

• DOI: 10.1017/s0305000903005890
• Publication Date: 2004-02-25T15:04:07Z
• Authors: IRINA A. SEKERINA; KARIN STROMSWOLD; ARILD HESTVIK
• Keywords: Referent

In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigate adults' and children's on-line processing of referentially ambiguous English pronouns. Sixteen adults 16 four-to-seven-year-olds listened to sentences with either an unambiguous reflexive (himself) or pronoun (him) chose a picture characters that corresponded those in the sentence. For adults, behavioural data, responses reaction times indicate pronouns are ambiguous. Adults' eye movements show competition between looks sentence-internal -external referents for pronouns, but not reflexives. Children overwhelmingly prefer referent off-line selection task. However, their reveal implicit awareness referential ambiguity develops earlier than explicit knowledge This discrepancy performance on looking measure pointing system is explained by general dissociation proposed recent literature cognitive development.