Children's ""mutuality demand"" in seeing, hearing, and speech

Mutual gaze plays an important role in children’s judgments of person perception. Previous studies show that when asked if they can see an agent whose eyes are occluded (Flavell, Shipstead, & Croft, 1980; Moll, Arellano, Guzman, Cordova, & Madrigal, 2015; Russell, Gee, & Bullard, 2012), children often give negative answers—indicating their strong inclination toward mutual engagement. In this study, we explored if children’s insistence on mutuality is limited to gaze or if they also demand it in the domain of vocal communication (i.e., hearing and speech). N = 24 children (12 female) between two-and-a-half and four years of age (M = 45.16 months) were asked if they could see, hear, and speak to another person whose eyes, ears, and mouth were/was covered, respectively (experimental condition). In a control condition, the same question was asked when the corresponding facial area was uncovered. In all three modalities, children negated being able to perceive or address another person when her facial areas (eyes, ears, mouth) were covered than when these same areas were in plain view. The current study is the first to demonstrate that children deny being able to hear or speak to another person who cannot hear or speak to them. These findings strongly confirm children’s insistence on mutual engagement, which they robustly manifest when seeing others.