Children’s recency tendency: A cross-linguistic study of Persian, Kurdish and English

• Published in: First language Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 350 - 367
• Main Authors: Mehrani, Mehdi B., Peterson, Carole
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.08.2017; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Age Differences; Children & youth; Comparative linguistics; Contrastive Linguistics; English; English language; Familiarity; Foreign Countries; Indo European Languages; Interviews; Kurdish language; Kurdish people; Language Acquisition; Language Processing; Language Research; Linguistics; Native language acquisition; Persian language; Preschool Children; Recency; Statistical Analysis; Task Analysis; Iran; Canada; interviewing; response bias; young children; recency tendency; Forced-choice questions
• ISSN: 0142-7237; 1740-2344
• DOI: 10.1177/0142723717694055

In the present cross-linguistic study two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of age and linguistic background on response tendencies of preschoolers toward forced-choice questions. A total of 163 2- to 5-year-old children, including 63 Persian speakers, 57 Kurdish speakers and 43 English speakers, were asked a set of forced-choice, two option questions about familiar and unfamiliar objects. The results showed that, regardless of their linguistic background, children displayed a recency tendency in response to forced-choice questions. In addition, younger children exhibited a stronger tendency and this tendency was more pronounced when children were asked questions about unfamiliar objects. The findings suggest that recency tendency is a universal phenomenon. However, it grows weaker as children’s age increases. The mechanism of a recency tendency along with implications of the use of forced-choice questions with children is discussed.