Young Children's Comprehension of Simple and Complex Metaphors Presented in Pictures and Words

Studies investigating children's metaphoric competence have frequently encouraged very young children to make judgments of similarity that rely almost exclusively on perceptual, visually explicit qualities such as shape and color (Vosniadou & Ortony, 1983). This study used materials that allowed young children (3, 4, and 5 years old) to make similarity judgments based on perceptually explicit criteria as well as criteria that were implicit in that criterial information could not be scrutinized. These materials were presented in pictures and in words, which made it possible to determine whether children could demonstrate metaphoric competence equally in both media. The results of this study show that children as young as 3 years old are able to metaphorically relate and explain domain resemblances based on implicit, as well as explicit, criteria. Across all materials, children were better able to perceive metaphorical relations in pictures than in words. These results suggest that metaphoric competence is present at an early age. They also suggest that metaphoric competence represents more than the ability to see perceptual relations between things-that it is a general strategic function at the service of children's effort after meaning.