Search for: All records

Generalizations are powerful tools to convey information agents need to predict and control their environments. However, some generalizations are restricted to “sociocultural bubbles”. How are such patterns communicated? We report one interdisciplinary study — bridging philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive developmental psychology — which examined the developing capacity for contextual restriction of generics in 4- 7-year-olds (N=137) and adults (N=63). We provided context cues signaling that the speaker used a generic generalization to convey a broad vs. contextually-restricted regularity, and measured endorsement of generics attributing properties prevalent globally vs. within “bubbles”. Adults endorsed generics flexibly, tracking context cues, but younger children struggled, over-attributing socially contingent properties to the group beyond the “bubble”, on par with context-general regularities. This reveals a troubling discrepancy between children and adults’ interpretations of generics, opening the door for cross-generational miscommunication. We discuss strategies to mitigate this in educational and family communication settings.