Chapter 8 - Conversation and Cognition

Abstract

This chapter reviews the research on conversation in relation to children's knowledge of the mental world in specific domains, such as the domain of food and contamination, and their suggestibility to misleading information. Human conversation can be considered as the culmination of an evolutionary process. Through the use of conversation about mental states, which alerts individuals to others' behavioral intentions and beliefs, humans have adapted to the threats to survival and group stability. Much early childhood socialization involves learning how, when, where, and with whom to converse. As a consequence, young children are quickly prepared to engage in conversation. During the period of their language acquisition, they are socialized by caregivers who make allowance for their early conversational inexperience. Although young children are very fluent in conversation, they have a difficulty understanding the pose and relevance of the questions in specialized, experimental settings. The early period in children's cognitive development is the one in which the conversational foundations of expressing what they know are put in place. Perhaps this period is necessary and adaptive for children to consolidate a toehold in certain core areas of knowledge that will serve them well in the future.