Preschoolers and adults metonymically extend proper names to owned objects

Zhu, Rebecca; Gopnik, Alison

doi:10.1111/cdev.13999

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Specifically, in all four failure groups, children who appealed to sameness and difference in their explanations performed at chance levels, children who appealed to irrelevant explanations performed at chance levels, and there was no difference in performance between children who appealed to sameness and difference in their explanations and children who appealed to irrelevant explanations. These findings are consistent with previous research showing that preschoolers who succeeded on a rMTS predicated upon sameness and difference of perceptual identity more frequently justified their responses by appealing to the words "same" and "different", relative to preschoolers who failed at the same rMTS predicated upon sameness and difference (Hochmann et al, 2017), as well as a larger body of literature showing that preschoolers who succeed on experimental tasks can often explicitly justify their responses (e.g., Zhu et al, 2020;Zhu & Gopnik, 2024).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Preschoolers represent abstract relations predicated on kind membership

Zhu

2024

Preprint

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Recent work demonstrates that preschoolers can represent the abstract relational concepts same and different when these abstract relational concepts are predicated upon perceptual dimensions (e.g., size, shape, color). However, two concepts can be the same or different along an infinite number of dimensions that are not restricted to specific modalities or cognitive domains (e.g., two images, smells, sounds, animals, or ideas can be the same as – or different from – each other). Consequently, the current research investigates whether preschoolers (n = 192; predominantly White, upper middle class, U.S. convenience sample) can represent the abstract relational concepts same and different when these abstract relational concepts are predicated upon abstract dimensions (e.g., kind membership). Experiment 1 shows that, at baseline, 4-year olds fail at a relational match-to-sample (rMTS) task with familiar kinds. However, Experiment 2 shows that 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, succeed at a rMTS task with familiar kinds when provided with training involving noun labels. Experiment 3 shows that 4- and 5-year-olds also succeed at a rMTS task with novel kinds when provided with training involving noun labels, but not adjective labels. Taken together, these results suggest that preschoolers are capable of representing abstract relations predicated on abstract, as well as perceptual, dimensions. Furthermore, in the present experimental context, noun labels, but not adjective labels, facilitated preschoolers’ relational reasoning abilities.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Preschoolers represent abstract relations predicated on kind membership

Zhu

2024

Preprint

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“…Moreover, preschoolers performed successfully in Experiments 2 and 3, which were conducted solely with metaphors as opposed to similes. Consequently, the results of the three current experiments converge with other findings suggesting that preschoolers do not have difficulty with some kinds of non-literal language (e.g., Zhu, 2021 ; Zhu & Gopnik, 2024 ). Moreover, in the broader literature on language acquisition, metaphor is often discussed as a case study of pragmatic reasoning (Gibbs, 2023 ; Goodman & Frank, 2016 ; Kao et al, 2014 ; Tonini et al, 2023 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Preschoolers’ sophisticated functional explanations are consistent with previous work showing that preschoolers are capable of reasoning about abstract relations (Christie & Gentner, 2014 ; Goddu et al, 2020 ; Hochmann et al, 2017 ) and the functions of objects (Diesendruck et al, 2003 ; Haward et al, 2018 ). While it is striking that a single explanation measure can capture such meaningful variation in children’s overall performance on a task, these findings are consistent with other results showing that the one or two explanations provided by children at the end of a task can be meaningfully related to children’s reasoning at the overall task (e.g., Hochmann et al, 2017 ; Zhu & Gopnik, 2023 , 2024 ). This relation has been found in paradigms relating both to children’s non-literal language comprehension (Zhu & Gopnik, 2024 ) and relational reasoning abilities (Hochmann et al, 2017 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…While it is striking that a single explanation measure can capture such meaningful variation in children’s overall performance on a task, these findings are consistent with other results showing that the one or two explanations provided by children at the end of a task can be meaningfully related to children’s reasoning at the overall task (e.g., Hochmann et al, 2017 ; Zhu & Gopnik, 2023 , 2024 ). This relation has been found in paradigms relating both to children’s non-literal language comprehension (Zhu & Gopnik, 2024 ) and relational reasoning abilities (Hochmann et al, 2017 ). Moreover, while researchers previously thought that preschoolers might struggle to form metalinguistic judgments about metaphors (Pouscoulous & Tomasello, 2020 ), Experiment 1 shows that preschoolers can differentiate between abstract, functional metaphors and nonsense statements in a “smart” or “silly” metalinguistic judgment paradigm.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

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Preschoolers’ Comprehension of Functional Metaphors

Zhu,

Goddu,

Zhu

et al. 2024

Open Mind

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Previous work suggests that preschoolers often misunderstand metaphors. However, some recent studies demonstrate that preschoolers can represent abstract relations, suggesting that the cognitive foundations of metaphor comprehension may develop earlier than previously believed. The present experiments used novel paradigms to explore whether preschoolers (N = 200; 4–5 years; 100 males, 100 females; predominantly White) can understand metaphors based on abstract, functional similarities. In Experiment 1, preschoolers and adults (N = 64; 18–41 years; 25 males, 39 females; predominantly White) rated functional metaphors (e.g., “Roofs are hats”; “Tires are shoes”) as “smarter” than nonsense statements (e.g., “Boats are skirts”; “Pennies are sunglasses”) in a metalinguistic judgment task (d = .42 in preschoolers; d = 3.06 in adults). In Experiment 2, preschoolers preferred functional explanations (e.g., “Both keep you dry”) over perceptual explanations (e.g., “Both have pointy tops”) when interpreting functional metaphors (e.g., “Roofs are hats”) (d = .99). In Experiment 3, preschoolers preferred functional metaphors (e.g., “Roofs are hats”) over nonsense statements (e.g., “Roofs are scissors”) when prompted to select the “better” utterance (d = 1.25). Moreover, over a quarter of preschoolers in Experiment 1 and half of preschoolers in Experiment 3 explicitly articulated functional similarities when justifying their responses, and the performance of these subsets of children drove the success of the entire sample in both experiments. These findings demonstrate that preschoolers can understand metaphors based on abstract, functional similarities.

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Providing Explanations Shifts Preschoolers’ Metaphor Preferences

Zhu,

Goddu,

Gopnik

2024

Oxford Studies in Experimental Philosophy

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To learn from metaphors, children must not only understand metaphors, but also appreciate their informativeness. Metaphors based on abstract commonalities (e.g., functional metaphors like “Eyes are windows”) typically have greater potential to generate novel inferences, and thus generally allow for more learning, than metaphors based on more superficial commonalities (e.g., perceptual metaphors like “Eyes are buttons”). However, previous research shows that preschoolers prefer perceptual metaphors over functional metaphors. Consequently, we ask whether providing additional context can shift preschoolers’ and adults’ metaphor preferences. In Experiment 1, pedagogical context increases preferences for functional metaphors in adults, but not preschoolers. In Experiment 2, providing explanations for similarities between the concepts in metaphors increases preschoolers’ preferences for functional metaphors. In Experiment 3, preschoolers differentiate between functional and perceptual metaphors when explicitly asked to communicate functional or perceptual information. These findings suggest that providing explanations for metaphors helps preschoolers appreciate their informativeness.

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Preschoolers and adults metonymically extend proper names to owned objects

Cited by 3 publications

References 86 publications

Preschoolers represent abstract relations predicated on kind membership

Preschoolers represent abstract relations predicated on kind membership

Preschoolers’ Comprehension of Functional Metaphors

Providing Explanations Shifts Preschoolers’ Metaphor Preferences

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