Deck 13: Developing an Ability to Communicate

Question 1

Young children do not always adapt their speech to the informational needs of the listener. Piaget called this:

A)Perspective-taking
B)The Three Mountains task
C)Solipsism
D)Egocentric speech
E)Perturbation

Answer 1

Egocentric speech

Question 2

According to Piaget, the following is a form of egocentric speech:

A)Describing garments worn by parents
B)Speaking on the telephone
C)Collective monologue
D)Demanding ice cream
E)Being argumentative

Answer 2

Collective monologue

Question 3

Piaget identified ______ principal kinds of egocentric speech

A)One
B)Two
C)Three
D)Four
E)Five

Answer 3

Three

Question 4

Krauss and Glucksberg (1969) engaged children in a communication game in which they were required to describe:

A)Toys
B)Clothes
C)Their father's shirt
D)Abstract designs
E)People

Question 5

Krauss and Glucksberg (1969) found a marked difference in descriptions given by children above and below the age of about ______ years.

A)4
B)5
C)6
D)7
E)8

Question 6

Shatz and Gelman (1973) found that children aged 4 years adapted their speech to listeners of different:

A)Mental ability
B)Status
C)Knowledge
D)Age
E)Friendliness

Question 7

A study demonstrated that 3-year-olds describe a scene differently depending on whether the listener had her eyes open. The principal researcher in that study was:

A)Krauss
B)Menig-Peterson
C)Shatz
D)Maratsos
E)Guralnick

Question 8

Menig-Peterson (1975) demonstrated that children aged 3 and 4 years are sensitive to their listener's informational needs in the following way:

A)Children described a person in an identity parade. They gave descriptions that unambiguously and uniquely identified the target
B)In one condition, the listener had witnessed the incident being described, while in another condition she had not witnessed the event
C)Children showed concern for a person who needed assistance
D)Empathy
E)Children wore an attentive facial expression and enquired, when appropriate, whether the listener understood and whether she required further information

Question 9

Sonnenschein's (1986) study suggests that:

A)Children aged 6 years and below understand that they need to provide more information to a listener who lacks shared knowledge, but they seem not to understand what kind of additional information is required
B)Children aged 6 years show no signs of the informational requirements of the listener. The findings lend compelling support to Piaget's claim that young children are egocentric
C)Children aged 6 years and below show an impressive level of insight into both how much information to convey to a listener and what kind of information to convey
D)Children aged 6 years adapt their communication to the informational needs of the listener so long as they understand the purpose of the experiment; if they do not understand the purpose, they are liable to appear egocentric
E)Even children aged 10 years are sometimes egocentric in their speech

Question 10

Mitchell, Munno, and Russell (1991) found that children aged about 5 years seem to understand that listeners sometimes are able to interpret imprecise descriptions of things but they are not sensitive to:

A)A peer being upset
B)Other people's emotional states
C)The communicative value of messages that vary in imprecision
D)Other people's feelings when they say something hurtful
E)Ambient noise

Question 11

According to Robinson and Whittaker (1987), children aged around 5 or 6 years do not understand the ______ quality of verbal messages.

A)informational
B)clue-like
C)poor
D)high
E)degraded

Question 12

According to Robinson and Whittaker (1987), children aged around 6 years tend to judge that an ambiguous message uttered by an adult is adequate because:

A)They assume that adults give interpretable information
B)They are loathe to criticize adults
C)They do not have a fully developed concept of ambiguity
D)They did not realize that passing judgments on the adult's utterance was the main focus of the experiment
E)It was made in the context of a game

Question 13

Mitchell and Robinson (1990, 1992) found that children aged around 5 and 6 years ______ in trying to select a picture of "Murkor" from a set of unfamiliar cartoon characters, even though they had just admitted that they did not know who Murkor was.

A)made a correct judgment
B)expressed ignorance
C)refused
D)expressed confidence
E)were uncomfortable

Question 14

According to Beal and Flavell (1984), children's failure to detect ambiguity in utterances is a sign that they do not:

A)Make the say-mean distinction
B)Feel comfortable criticizing adults
C)Understand the instructions on how to respond
D)Have a concept of egocentric speech
E)Have preoperational intelligence

Question 15

In the study by Beal and Flavell (1984), children performed less well in detecting ambiguity when:

A)The child was distracted when the experimenter carried out a magic trick
B)The ambiguity was very subtle
C)The ambiguity was very conspicuous
D)The experimenter supplied disambiguating information
E)The set of alternatives was large

Question 16

Mitchell and Russell (1989, 1991) demonstrated a difference between children below about 6 years of age and those aged about 10 years. While both age groups seemed to recognize that a speaker might misdescribe something, only the older participants seemed to understand the relation between misdescription and:

A)Communication failure
B)Failure to interpret the utterance
C)Non-comprehension
D)Figurative speech
E)The speaker's poor memory

Question 17

In Robinson and Mitchell's (1992) study, children watched a scenario in which the speaker didn't know that some bags of material had been swapped around. When the speaker asked for the bag in the drawer, observing child participants were asked to point to the location from which the speaker really wanted the bag; the correct answer was to point to:

A)The drawer
B)The cupboard
C)The speaker
D)The experimenter
E)The listener

Question 18

In Robinson and Mitchell's (1992) study, how can we be confident that children gave the right answer for the right reason?

A)Because they interpreted the request literally when the speaker held a true belief
B)Because they seemed to be concentrating very hard and were attending to the task
C)Because they understood the question
D)We can't
E)The children said they were certain that they had made a correct judgment

Question 19

What was the youngest age at which Robinson and Mitchell (1992) found evidence of children interpreting an utterance nonliterally?

A)7 years
B)6 years
C)5 years
D)4 years
E)3 years

Question 20

According to findings reported by Mitchell, Robinson, and Thompson (1999), why do young children sometimes inappropriately interpret requests literally?

A)They are impulsive
B)They find it hard to distinguish between what is said and what is intended
C)They have lapses in concentration
D)They do not understand the purpose of the experiment
E)They do not anticipate errors in descriptions of things

Question 21

In the study by Mitchell, Robinson, and Thompson (1999), the speaker's request either did or did not include the phrase "I put." What effect did this have?

A)Children found it much easier to understand the question when the phrase "I put" was included
B)Children less likely to point to the non-mentioned location when the phrase "I put" was included
C)Children were more likely to point to the non-mentioned location when the phrase "I put" was excluded
D)The age at which children gave correct judgments was reduced by approximately 12 months
E)Children were more likely to point to the non-mentioned location when the phrase "I put" was included

Question 22

Mitchell and Robinson (1994) investigated the relation between children's ability to evaluate a discrepant utterance and an ambiguous message. They found that:

A)Being able to evaluate a discrepant utterance developmentally precedes being able to detect ambiguity
B)Children aged 5 years were surprisingly effective at detecting ambiguity
C)Children begin to give appropriate evaluations of ambiguous and discrepant messages from about the age of 7 years
D)Evaluating a discrepant message is just as difficult as evaluating an ambiguous message
E)Evaluating a discrepant message is more difficult than evaluating an ambiguous message

Question 23

According to Mitchell and Robinson (1990), which of the following is a reason why children believe that they can successfully interpret an ambiguous message?

A)They assume the experimenter will tell them if they have made the wrong choice
B)There is no impediment to making an interpretation
C)They don't notice that the description is consistent with several items in the set of alternatives
D)They do not scan the set of alternatives systematically, looking for differences and similarities
E)They are egocentric

Question 24

According to Mitchell and Robinson (1990), children aged around 5 years are not able to distinguish between:

A)Being able to make a response (any response) and being able to make the CORRECT response
B)Discrepant and ambiguous utterances
C)Differences in appearance among a set of cartoon characters
D)Subtle differences in wording, for example whether the phrase "I put" is present or absent
E)Appearance and reality

Question 25

Robinson and Robinson (1981) observed interactions between mothers and their young children in the environment of the home. They found that some mothers effectively refused to interpret requests from their children when these requests were unclear. Children of these mothers tended to be:

A)Reticent
B)Developmentally delayed in understanding that messages can be ambiguous
C)Egocentric
D)Uncooperative
E)Developmentally advanced in understanding that messages can be ambiguous