@article{THESIS,
      recid = {12923},
      author = {Morris, Ben},
      title = {Thinking Out Loud: Children Use Conversational Cues to  Infer Underlying Mental States},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {Ph.D.},
      address = {2024-08},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {In conversation, much is communicated without being  directly said. By leveraging an understanding of how  language relates to mental states and processes,  communication becomes a window into a speaker’s thinking.  In this dissertation, I demonstrate how children (ages  4-to-9) come to readily reason about others’ mental states  based not just on what they say, but how they say it—from  how easily something is said (Chapter 1), to how surprised  someone seems (Chapter 2), and even how someone is spoken  to (Chapter 3). In Chapter 1, I explore the humble “um.”  While disfluencies in speech are often overlooked as  meaningless errors by laypeople and researchers alike, I  demonstrate that children interpret disfluencies as  socially meaningful—over and above the content of what is  said—and use them to flexibly infer a speaker’s knowledge  and preferences. In Chapter 2, I explore how children  reason about the implications of conversational cues in  feedback, specifically how markers of surprisal and  production difficulty (e.g., “Oh! Um… Sure”) lead children  and adults to infer a speaker’s underlying expectations. I  find that conversational feedback not only signals a  speaker’s expectations, but also provides an unappreciated  avenue for the transmission of social beliefs and  stereotypes. In Chapter 3, I show that how someone is  spoken to may shape the mental inferences that children  make about that person before that person ever says a word.  When a speaker offers basic categorical information,  children and adults infer that the listener is likely  unfamiliar with the topic at hand. Across these three  chapters, I argue that children are actively, rationally,  and flexibly inferring mental states by integrating subtle  conversational cues, context, and prior discourse.  Capitalizing on their skills as budding mentalists,  children are learning to extract social meaning from subtle  conversational cues—skills that are fundamental to becoming  smooth conversationalists and sophisticated social  learners.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/12923},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.12923},
}