Investigation of children's understanding of the cognitive
verb forget has
shown that young children do not consider the role of prior knowledge
when using this verb. Thus, someone may be said to have forgotten a
fact despite not ever having previously known it. However, forget
can
also be used to refer to a failure to recall a prior intention. Three
experiments examined the role of prior intention as well as prior
knowledge in the comprehension of forget by 160 young children
aged
four to eight years. The results showed that children initially have two
interpretations of forget: as an unfulfilled desire
rather than a failure to
recall a prior intention, and as a state of not knowing rather than a failure
to recall prior knowledge. Explanations for the late comprehension of
forget are discussed in terms of representation of knowledge and
intention, processing capacity and exposure to pragmatic usages.