References:Billow, R.M. (1981). Observing spontaneous metaphor in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 31, 430-445Dent, C.H. (1987). Comprehending concrete metaphors: Developing an understanding or topic-vehicle interaction. In K. E. Nelson & A. van Kleeck (Eds.), Children's Language, 6, 213-228. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Dent-Read, C., & Szokolszky, A. (1993). Where do metaphors come from? Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 8, 227-242.Gibson, J.J. (1979). (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Gibson, E.J. & Pick, A. D. (2000). An ecological approach to perceptual learning and development. New York: Oxford University Press.Winner, E. (1995). Developmental perspectives on metaphor: A Special Issue, Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10 (4)

KINDS AND RESEMBLANCES: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF METAPHOR USECatherine Read, Ágnes SzokolszkyRutgers University, USA Szeged University, Hungary

Finding Common Ground Conference, University of Connecticut June 12-14, 2014

KINDS AND RESEMBLANCES: AN ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF METAPHOR USECatherine Read, Ágnes SzokolszkyRutgers University, USA Szeged University, Hungary

Finding Common Ground Conference, University of Connecticut June 12-14, 2014

Theoretical & empirical background, the aim of the study and hypothesesWhen a 3 ½ year old child, looking at fireworks bursting in the night sky, points and says to her father, “They’re flowers” is she using a metaphor, or mistaking fireworks for flowers? Metaphoric competencies were long assumed to develop in mid- or late childhood, because it was thought that they require sophisticated representational skills and the violation of category boundaries of the topic (e.g. “fireworks”) and the vehicle (“flowers”) (e.g. Billow, 1981). However, when researchers began to investigate children’s metaphors in naturalistic settings instead of having them paraphrase metaphoric sentences out of situational or narrative context, they found that children do use metaphors even at a very young age (e.g. Winner, 1995), and also in action (Dent-Read, 1997). Previously we argued (Dent-Read and Szokolszky, 1993) for a direct realist view of novel metaphors in the tradition of ecological psychology (Gibson,1979). We argued that metaphor is a fundamentally perceptual process and at the heart of metaphor is the nonmediational perception of a specific invariant pattern of information that is strikingly shared by the topic (e.g. fireworks) and the vehicle (flowers). These patterns present themselves as cross-kind resemblances and constitute the potential for the metaphoric ground (Dent and Szokolszky, 1993). Metaphors, then, along with other kinds of acting and perceiving, rest on basically veridical epistemological processes and function to adapt the listener to the structures and processes of the real world.

MethodParticipants 150 people participated, 30 at each of 5 ages; 4, 6, 8 and 10 years, and adult. These age groups have been chosen because they represent a wide age range, including the youngest that could perform the task. All participants had English as a first language and were of normal intelligence (as reported by teachers).

Materials The metaphors were chosen from those earlier produced by children (listed in Table 1). The materials were pairs of realistic color photographs depicting the topic and vehicle (Figure 1.a,1.b). The photographs contained visual information that accentuated the metaphoric grounds.

Procedure In Phase I, each participant was asked about each photograph: "What is this?" and "What do you know about s?" (knowledge elicitation task). In Phase II, (the matching task), they were required to choose matches to a standard. Half of the participants at each age, were randomly assigned to receive instructions to match those that were "alike" (the "like" condition), the other half to match those that were "the same kind of thing" (the "kind" condition). In Phase III, (the metaphor elicitation task), participants were required to talk about metaphoric pairs of pictures. The experimenter removed all the pictures, then placed one photograph from a metaphoric pair on the table and asked the participant to think about the pictured object. Then she placed the other photograph half covering the first picture and asked the "interaction" question: "Now tell me about (the object in the second picture).” Each participant talked individually to one of two female experimenters and all sessions were video-taped.

Transcription and scoring Phase I: The knowledge elicitation task was transcribed for the descriptions of each object and was scored for the presence of eight types of knowledge (see Figure 2.). Phase II: The matching task was transcribed and scored for the type of match (metaphoric, literal, or anomalous); a match was metaphoric if it was not the same kind of thing as the standard and the reason given could be the ground of a verbal metaphor. Phase III:The metaphor production task was transcribed for the answers given to the questions and these utterances were scored as metaphoric or not. We also scored for verbal expression of the metaphoric ground.

Figure 1.b.Example of metaphoric pair of pictures: whale spouting and fountain going

Phase III: We expected that people would not use metaphors about objects or events that they had said were of different kinds, and indeed only a very small number of people did not confirm this expectation. Among the children 3/10 of the metaphors produced by 4-year-olds fell in this category, among the adults this figure was 2/61. ANOVA showed that metaphor production increased with age ( F(3,116)= 17.20, p<.0001, Duncan's Multiple Range Test for post hoc analysis, p<.05), verbal descriptions of metaphoric grounds showed the same age pattern (Figure 4.).

Figure 1a. Example of metaphoric pair of pictures: fireworks and flowers

Contact: ceread@rci.rutgers.edu

Table 1. Metaphors used in the study (earlier produced by children)

The present research investigated children's knowledge of naturally occurring kinds, their ability to detect metaphoric resemblances, and the possibility that discourse contexts could support metaphor production by using pairs of photographs depicting objects and events from metaphors previously produced by children. We were interested to see if children, in the age range across 4, 6, 8 and 10, compared to each other and adults, can perceive the invariant structure in the picture pairs presenting potential metaphoric resemblances, and then verbalize those resemblances. We also wanted to gain evidence that when they perceive the resemblances they fully understand that the involved objects or events are of different kinds. We expected that metaphor production would increase with age and that children would use metaphors of objects and events they know are of not the same kind but would not use metaphors when they know the objects or events are of the same kind.

Figure 2.

ResultsPhase I: All the children knew something about almost all the pictured objects and events. Verbalization of knowledge increased with age, except that adults and 10-year-olds were not significantly different (F(4,145)= 23.06, p<.001). The dynamic property and function categories ranked in the top three at all ages (see Figure 2.).

Phase II: Because we hypothesized that in the like condition children would match objects on the basis of both literal and metaphoric resemblance, but in the kind condition they would match only on the basis of literal resemblance, this task was instrumental in showing that metaphoric matches and utterances were truly figurative. In accordance with our hypothesis, metaphoric matches were rare in the kind condition and frequent in the like condition ( F(1,140)= 45.36, p<.001, Figure 3.). This confirms that children's metaphoric matches were not "category mistakes." As expected, 4-year-olds made fewer metaphoric matches than did 6 and 8-year-olds, who made fewer matches than 10-year-olds and adults (F(4,140)= 2.94, p<.05).

DiscussionThe experimental procedure is a novel attempt to create a situation in which metaphor production by children can effectively be stimulated, knowledge of metaphoric and literal resemblance can be differentiated and evidence of knowledge of kinds can be gathered at the same time. One novel aspect of the study was the involvement of a wide age range, as well as a wide range of instances of metaphors previously actually used by children. We suggested that metaphors involve perception of cross-kind resemblances and have shown that even young children respond, in a structured discourse context, to visual information of metaphoric grounds, that is, specific invariant patterns of information strikingly shared across kinds. The results provide evidence that young children's metaphors are truly metaphoric , that is, they are about things that are different in kind but which share a metaphoric ground. What develops, then, in metaphor use, is a threefold process: 1) learning about what constitute kinds progresses along with learning what constitutes cross-kind resemblances, in a process of ever increasing differentiation and integration, as suggested by Eleanor Gibson (see E. Gibson, 2003), 2) developing insights into metaphoric relations presented in the world, and 3) the increasingly skillful use of language, to express those insights.

DiscussionThe experimental procedure is a novel attempt to create a situation in which metaphor production by children can effectively be stimulated, knowledge of metaphoric and literal resemblance can be differentiated and evidence of knowledge of kinds can be gathered at the same time. One novel aspect of the study was the involvement of a wide age range, as well as a wide range of instances of metaphors previously actually used by children. We suggested that metaphors involve perception of cross-kind resemblances and have shown that even young children respond, in a structured discourse context, to visual information of metaphoric grounds, that is, specific invariant patterns of information strikingly shared across kinds. The results provide evidence that young children's metaphors are truly metaphoric , that is, they are about things that are different in kind but which share a metaphoric ground. What develops, then, in metaphor use, is a threefold process: 1) learning about what constitute kinds progresses along with learning what constitutes cross-kind resemblances, in a process of ever increasing differentiation and integration, as suggested by Eleanor Gibson (see E. Gibson, 2003), 2) developing insights into metaphoric relations presented in the world, and 3) the increasingly skillful use of language, to express those insights.

Figure 4. Figure 3.