Cognitive Development 21 (2006) 214–231 Preschoolers use information about speakers’ desires to learn new words Megan M. Saylor * , Georgene L. Troseth Department of Psychology and Human Development, GPC 512, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203-5701, USA Abstract This research investigates preschoolers’ use of desires for word learning. Three-year-old children were shown pairs of novel toys and were asked about their own desire and told about a researcher’s desire. For half of the children the researcher liked the same object they did and for the other half the researcher liked a different object. The researcher then used a novel label in stating her desire to play with the toy. Children tracked others’ verbally presented desires and showed clear evidence of label learning. These findings add to a body of work clarifying the robust and flexible word learning skills of preschoolers. © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Preschoolers; Word learning; Theory of mind The rate at which young language learners master their growing vocabularies has proven a puzzle for researchers, especially when the complexity of the word-learning task is considered (e.g., Quine, 1960). Investigations have revealed that children use several kinds of information to learn words, including syntactic information, constraints on word meaning, and pragmatic cues (see Woodward & Markman, 1997 for a review). Children’s adroitness at recruiting information relevant to word meaning also extends to an emerging area—their understanding of mental states, including beliefs (Carpenter, Call, & Tomasello, 2002; Happ´ e & Loth, 2002) and knowledge states (Birch & Bloom, 2002; Sabbagh & Baldwin, 2001). In this vein, we ask whether preschool children use information about speakers’ desires to learn names for things. 1. Children’s understanding of desires The understanding of desire emerges early, increasing the likelihood that preschool children would be able to use desires learn words. Seminal research by Wellman and his colleagues revealed * Corresponding author. E-mail address: m.saylor@vanderbilt.edu (M.M. Saylor). 0885-2014/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.03.006