Social Pragmatics: Preschoolers Rely on Commonsense Psychology to Resolve Referential Underspecification.

Four experiments show that 4- and 5-year-olds (total N = 112) can identify the referent of underdetermined utterances through their Naive Utility Calculus-an intuitive theory of people's behavior structured around an assumption that agents maximize utilities. In Experiments 1-2, a puppet asked for help without specifying to whom she was talking ("Can you help me?"). In Experiments 3-4, a puppet asked the child to pass an object without specifying what she wanted ("Can you pass me that one?"). Children's responses suggest that they considered cost trade-offs between the members in the interaction. These findings add to a body of work showing that reference resolution is informed by commonsense psychology from early in childhood.