Bohn Manuel, Tessler Michael Henry, Kordt Clara, Hausmann Tom, Frank Michael C
Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
DeepMind, London, UK.
Dev Sci. 2023 Nov;26(6):e13401. doi: 10.1111/desc.13401. Epub 2023 Apr 23.
Pragmatic abilities are fundamental to successful language use and learning. Individual differences studies contribute to understanding the psychological processes involved in pragmatic reasoning. Small sample sizes, insufficient measurement tools, and a lack of theoretical precision have hindered progress, however. Three studies addressed these challenges in three- to 5-year-old German-speaking children (N = 228, 121 female). Studies 1 and 2 assessed the psychometric properties of six pragmatics tasks. Study 3 investigated relations among pragmatics tasks and between pragmatics and other cognitive abilities. The tasks were found to measure stable variation between individuals. Via a computational cognitive model, individual differences were traced back to a latent pragmatics construct. This presents the basis for understanding the relations between pragmatics and other cognitive abilities. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Individual differences in pragmatic abilities are important to understanding variation in language development. Research in this domain lacks a precise theoretical framework and psychometrically high-quality measures. We present six tasks capturing a wide range of pragmatic abilities with excellent re-test reliability. We use a computational cognitive model to provide a substantive theory of individual differences in pragmatic abilities.
语用能力是成功运用和学习语言的基础。个体差异研究有助于理解语用推理所涉及的心理过程。然而，样本量小、测量工具不足以及理论精确性的欠缺阻碍了这方面的进展。三项研究针对3至5岁的德语儿童（N = 228，其中121名为女性）应对了这些挑战。研究1和研究2评估了六项语用任务的心理测量特性。研究3调查了语用任务之间以及语用能力与其他认知能力之间的关系。结果发现这些任务能够测量个体之间稳定的差异。通过一个计算认知模型，个体差异被追溯到一个潜在的语用结构。这为理解语用能力与其他认知能力之间的关系奠定了基础。研究亮点：语用能力的个体差异对于理解语言发展的差异很重要。该领域的研究缺乏精确的理论框架和心理测量学上高质量的测量方法。我们提出了六项任务，它们能够涵盖广泛的语用能力，且重测信度极佳。我们使用一个计算认知模型来提供关于语用能力个体差异的实质性理论。
