Accuracy Statistics and Inferences about Speakers’ Epistemic Knowledge Drive Children’s Reliability Judgments in the Verbal Domain

Preschoolers preferentially generalize words learned from accurate speakers. What is the underlying mechanism? Do children use word-object-speaker associations alone or do they make inferences about speakers’ epistemic states? We show that preschoolers predominantly use epistemic states while keeping track of associations and resorting to them when epistemic states aren’t informative.