Homework 6: Testing Constraints on Interpretation
The Truth Value Judgment Task
a. First take a look at the story The Jumping Contest, which is
used to test children's understanding of a sentence like "He thinks the Troll is the best jumper", on
the interpretation which violates Principle C.
b. Try to construct a new story, using the same task, which could be used to test the Principle C
constraint in the sentence He said that Pooh liked the watermelon
best. Please make sure to indicate how the various parts of
your experimental design satisfy the design features of the Truth Value
Judgment Task.
Remember that your goal is to use the Truth Value Judgment task to create a fair test of whether a
child (aged 3-5) can understand "he" to mean "Pooh" in the sentence above. No pictures needed. A
simple storyline/dialog is sufficient. One thing that can be very helpful in doing this is to add
editorial comments to your story, explaining how specific parts of your story achieve particular
requirements of the Truth Value Judgment Task. For example, you could present your story in the
form of a two column table. In the first column provide the text of the story. In the second
column, give annotations showing what the different parts of the story achieve.