Abstract

Disfluencies, such as filled pauses, signal listeners that the speaker is hesitant or is about to refer to a novel entity not mentioned in prior discourse. Prior research demonstrated that 3-year-olds can detect hesitation from a filled pause inserted in speech and infer speakers'-true state of mind using such disfluencies. The present study examined whether this ability emerges earlier than age 3, considering the early abilities of inferring referential intent observed among English 2-year-olds. We presented two animal puppets who responded differently to a toy offer by the experimenter: one answered with hesitation marker "uh" while the other answered fluently without hesitation. Then the children were asked to give the toy to one of the two animals. Overall results showed that 2-year-olds selected the animals who answered without hesitation as the recipient of the offered item. However, only the girls' selection of the correct animal reached statistical significance, showing a similar pattern to the one reported with 3-year-olds. These results suggest that the ability to detect and use disfluency in inferring others' state of mind begin to develop around two years of age.