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Autumn leaves and old photographs: The development of metaphor preferences
JOURNAL
OF EXPERIMENTAL
CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
34,
135-150 (1982)
Autumn Leaves and Old Photographs: The Development of Metaphor Preferences LISA SILBERSTEIN,
HOWARD GARDNER, ERIN PHELPS Harvard
University
AND ELLEN Boston
College
WINNER
and Harvard
University
In order to determine the development of preferences for different types of metaphors, a metaphor preferences task was designed. Subjects at seven ages, from 6 through 20 years, received incomplete sentences followed by metaphorical and literal completions, and were asked to select their preferred completions. The pattern of preferences shifted with age. Metaphors based on grounds involving color or shape were preferred by the youngest subjects: metaphors based on movement or sound were preferred by subjects of intermediate age; and metaphors based on nonperceptual, conceptual grounds were preferred by the oldest subjects. At all ages the most frequently chosen metaphors were those based on a combination of two grounds (e.g., color and shape). Preference for literal completions declined with age, but there was an increase in literal selections in the 8th and 10th grades. This study demonstrates the systematic development of aesthetic preferences in the domain of figurative language.
As a result of recent research in metaphor, much knowledge has been obtained about the development of skills in metaphoric production and comprehension. For instance, we know that children begin to produce The research reported here was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BNS 13099) and the National Institute of Education (G-78-0031). Portions of this paper were presented at the American Educational Research Association, 1980. We are grateful to the following individuals for their help: Arnold Lanni, Assistant Superintendent, Arlington Public Schools; Mary Murphy, Principal, Dallin School, Arlington Public Schools; Thomas Trevisani, English Department Chairman, Arlington High School; Charles Christensen, Principal, Arlington Junior High East; Ellen Krim, Director, Lesley-Ellis Preschool; and the many teachers and students who contributed to this research. We also thank Margaret McCarthy Herzig and Eve Mendelsohn for their assistance in the conduct of this research. Reprint requests should be sent to Ellen Winner, Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. 135 0022-0%5/82/040135-16$02.00/0 Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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ET AL
metaphors during the initial stages of language acquisition (Billow, I981 ; Nelson, Rescorla, Gruendel, & Benedict, 1978; Winner, 1979; Winner, McCarthy, & Gardner, 1980). These early metaphors are often based on perceptual features of objects, features such as shape (calling a piece of string a “snake”), color (calling a red and white stop sign a “candy cane”), or shape and color combined (calling a yellow plastic baseball bat “corn”) (Winner, 1979). Only in the mid-elementary school years do children begin to create metaphors based on less obvious, nonperceptual properties such as affective states (calling an angry person a “volcano”) (Gardner, Winner, Bechhofer, & Wolf, 1978). Moreover, while young children produce a relatively high number of metaphors in their spontaneous speech, the frequency of spontaneous metaphoric production declines during the middle childhood years (Billow, 1981; Gardner & Winner, 1982; Pollio & Pollio, 1974; Marti, Note 1; Snyder, Note 2). [No decline, however, is found in experimentally elicited metaphoric production (Winner, McCarthy, Kleinman. & Gardner, 1979).] This decline in spontaneous metaphorical usage has led some observers to describe the middle and late elementary school years as a conventional “literal” stage during which children eschew figurative language in favor of mastering the rules of conventional usage (Gardner et al., 1978; Gardner & Winner, 1982). The spontaneous production of metaphors rises again in adolescence and adulthood, but this rise occurs most steeply among those who go on to become writers (Gardner & Winner, 1982). The developmental course of comprehension is a simpler one: The ability to understand metaphors increases steadily with age (Billow, 1975; Reynolds & Ortony, 1980; Pollio & Pickens, 1980; Pollio & Pollio, 1974; Winner, Rosenstiel, & Gardner, 1976). Paralleling the course of production, children are first only able to understand perceptually based metaphors; conceptually grounded metaphors are not well understood until the middle school years (Cicone, Gardner, & Winner, 1981; Winner et al., 1976, 1979). It is only in the late elementary school years that children are able to explain the metaphors that they understand. Although a considerable amount is known about how children come to make and understand simple metaphors, very little is known about the kinds of metaphors that children of different ages find appealing. One study demonstrated that children’s metaphor preferences become increasingly consistent with age (Malgady, 1977). Another study of adult preferences suggested that the aptness of a metaphor correlates with the relative positions of the topic (the first term of the metaphor) and the vehicle (the second term) within their respective semantic spaces (Tourangeau & Sternberg, 1981). But the very factor that this study held constant-the type of similarity between the two terms (the ground)may itself determine a metaphor’s appeal. That is, metaphors based on certain kinds of grounds may prove more or less appealing by virtue of their ground.
METAPHOR
137
One approach to understanding the development of metaphoric preferences is to consider the kinds of grounds that children of different ages find appealing.’ Studies of metaphoric production and comprehension yield some clues about the kinds of grounds that are likely to be preferred at different ages. If the developmental course of metaphoric preference is parallel to comprehension, a preference for more obvious metaphors (such as ones based on perceptual properties of objects) should precede a liking for more subtle metaphors (such as ones that are conceptually based). And if there is, in fact, a conventional “literal” stage, children in the middle elementary school years should reject metaphors of any kind, preferring instead more “precise,” literal uses of language. In the present study, subjects between first grade and college were given incomplete sentences along with a choice of several metaphorical endings and one literal ending for each sentence. To test the hypothesis of a shift from obvious to subtle preferences, metaphorical completions varied on three dimensions: type of ground on which they were based; the number of grounds on which they were based; and the salience of the ground with respect to the topic. a. Type of ground. Three types of grounds were used in the construction of items: (1) shape and color represented static-perceptual grounds, qualities which the senses perceive immediately or in a brief span of time; (2) sound and movement represented dynamic-perceptual grounds, properties which are typically experienced over a period of time; and (3) conceptual grounds were based on abstract, nonperceptual qualities, either static or dynamic (e.g., calm, permanence, liberation). It was hypothesized that static-perceptual grounds were the most obvious and would be preferred by the youngest subjects; dynamic-perceptual grounds would be preferred by late elementary school subjects; and conceptual grounds, the least obvious, would be preferred by adolescents and adults. 6. Number ofgrounds. Metaphorical completions were based on either a single ground or a combination of two grounds. Metaphors based on only one ground were hypothesized to be less obvious because they are characterized by greater “tension,” i.e., conceptual distance between topic and vehicle (Richards, 1936). For example, a metaphorical equation ’ It should be noted that it is difficult to determine with certainty the ground of any particular metaphor. This is because any two objects share an infinite number of properties (Goodman, 1972). Thus, while a metaphor equating a string with a snake may appear to be grounded simply on shape, it is certainly possible that this equation is also based on other shared properties [e.g., location (both lie on the grass), texture (the string may be slimy), or movement (the string may move in water in a snake-like fashion)]. Thus, any division of metaphors according to ground is open to challenge. Nonetheless, on the basis of the developmental literature on metaphor, it is possible to anticipate some consistent trends in the development of preferences for different types of grounds. If these predictions are supported, support will be cbtained for the a priori classification of metaphors according to ground.
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of a snowflake and a twirling ballerina, which is based on a single ground (movement), appears to possess more tension than an equation of a snowflake and a falling paper airplane, which is based on two grounds (movement and color). It was predicted that preference for metaphors based on dual grounds would decline with age, reflecting an increasing appreciation for less obvious, more tense, metaphors. c. Salience of ground with respect to the topic. Metaphorical completions were constructed so that either high or low salient properties of the topics were represented by the grounds. A salient property of an object is one of its most obvious and distinctive aspects, one which is most likely to be listed first if people are asked to describe this object (cf. Ortony, 1979). For instance the color of a stop sign is probably a more salient property than its shape.’ High and low salient properties of each topic were empirically determined (as will be described in more detail below) and grounds were constructed accordingly. It was hypothesized that a preference for metaphors based on highly salient properties of the topic would give way to an appreciation for those based on less salient properties of the topic. To test the hypothesis of a “literal” stage in which children prefer literal to metaphorical language, literal completions were included with metaphorical ones for each item. It was predicted that preference for metaphorical over literal completions would follow a U-shaped curve, declining during the mid-elementary school years but increasing again in high school and adulthood. METHOD
Subjects One hundred and thirty-eight subjects (with approximately equal numbers of boys and girls at each age) participated in this study. Fifteen subjects in each of grades 3 (age 8), 5 (age IO), 6 (age ll), 8 (age 13), 10 (age 15), 12 (age 17), and college (age 20) received a written version of the task; and 15 subjects in grade 1 (age 6) and 6 subjects in each of grades 3, 5, and 6 received an oral version of the task. The two versions ’ Ortony (1979) has argued that the ground of a metaphor links a highly salient feature of the vehicle and a low salient feature of the topic. He argues that sentences which link two objects on the basis of highly salient properties of each are not metaphors but are literal comparisons. While we accept the point that literal comparisons are often based on highly salient properties of two objects (e.g., “A candle is like a torch”), we also believe that metaphorical comparisons can be similarly constructed. For example, in “Clouds are cotton balls,” the properties of whiteness and fluffiness are highly salient to both terms. What distinguishes metaphors based on highly salient properties of the topic is that they are more “obvious” than those based on low salient properties. Thus, a metaphor based on the color of a stop sign is likely to be more obvious, more immediately apprehendable. than one based on its shape.
METAPHOR
139
were employed because it was necessary to administer an oral test to the youngest children. The oral version was administered to the six subjects in each of grades 3, 5, and 6 in order to determine whether mode of representation affected performance. Subjects were drawn from schools serving a primarily middle-class population, and were selected at random from their classrooms. College subjects, whose fields of concentration represented a cross section of academic disciplines, were randomly selected from an undergraduate psychology course. Materials
A metaphor preferences task, consisting of 25 items, was constructed. Each item consisted of an incomplete sentence followed by five possible endings. Seven kinds of completions were rotated throughout the task. Five kinds of completions yielded metaphorical sentences, each based on a different ground: (1) shape, (2) color, (3) sound, (4) movement, and (5) conceptual. The sixth kind of completion was based on a combination of any two grounds from 1 to 5. The seventh type of completion yielded a nonmetaphorical, literal sentence. Completions were equal in length, and their order was randomized across items. Sample items are contained in Table 1. The full set of items used is available from the authors on request. As part of the task construction, 15 adults were each given 25 metaphors and were asked to specify their grounds. Through this method, the ground of each of the 125 metaphors (25 items x 5 completions) was assessed by three judges. No metaphorical completion was included on the task if judges failed to agree on its ground. Four of the five completions for each item yielded metaphorical grounds, so that each single ground appeared on 20 items. The remaining choice on each item consisted of either a literal completion (12 items) or a combination ground (13 items). The two grounds within the combination ground were drawn from all of the five single grounds, and the two grounds appearing in a combination ground were always offered as single metaphorical grounds on that item. During pilot testing, several anomalous choices (i.e., neither metaphorical nor literal completions of the sentence) were included in the task in order to ascertain whether children ever made their selections randomly or on the basis of the vehicle alone, regardless of its relation to the topic. Since no anomalous completions were selected during the course of extensive piloting, they were not included in the final task. In order to investigate whether particularly salient properties of a topic guide preference for grounds, a measure of salient characteristics was obtained for the 25 topics. Ten adult judges were asked to decide which of the five types of properties (shape, color, sound, movement, concep-
140
SILBERSTEIN TABLE SAMPLE
ET AL. 1 ITEMS
The popped red ballon is a limp washcloth (shape) a bottle of ketchup (color) a washed away sandcastle (conceptual: impermanence) an empty auditorium after a concert (sound) an apple peel (combination: color and shape) A wave in the ocean is a curl of hair (shape) a burst of energy in a tired runner (conceptual: a surge or increase) a stack of dishes crashing (sound) a lion springing in attack (movement) water that goes up and down (literal) The rattle snake was a long rope (shape) __ soap sliding along the bathtub (movement) a hissing kettle (sound) a storm cloud (conceptual: impending danger) an animal in the grass (literal) A traffic jam is . __ many cars in one place (literal) a barnyard of noisy animals (sound) getting your zipper stuck half-way (conceptual: obstruction) dominoes in a row (shape) __ a creeping caterpillar (movement) The streetlights along the dark highway are fireflies in the air (color) __ lightbulbs on tall poles (literal) a connect-the-dots puzzle (shape) guards standing still at attention (movement) __ lonely people (conceptual: separation) The volcano is a very angry man (conceptual: loss of control) tomato sauce boiling over a pot (combination: color and conceptual) a bright fire truck (color) a roaring lion (sound) __ a whale spouting water (movement) The snowflake is a gentle kiss (conceptual: delicacy) __ a twirling ballerina (movement) a falling paper airplane (combination: a silent street (sound)
color and movement) __~~_
-~..
METAPHOR
141
tual) were salient properties of each topic. Choices were marked as being salient for one or more grounds when 80% or more of the judges agreed on the salient characteristic(s) of a topic (e.g., color and movement were deemed salient for fulling autumn leaves). In 17 of the 25 items, at least one of the choices offered was marked as salient with respect to the topic. Procedure
Subjects were told that poems ofteninvolve “interesting and different names for things” and that the experimenters wanted to find out what kinds of poems people like best. In order to introduce the task, the experimenter then read aloud a sample incomplete sentence with seven different completions, articulating for the subjects the ground of each comparison. In both oral and written administrations of the task, the experimenter read each item aloud twice as a series of five complete sentences. For each item, subjects were asked to select the completion they liked best. The choices were then read again, and subjects were asked to choose their second favorite. In the oral version, children were seen individually. Subjects given the written version were tested as a group in their classrooms. In addition to indicating their preferences, subjects were asked to state or record the grounds of the completions that they selected. For example, after choosing the metaphor “Falling autumn leaves, are old photographs,” the subject was asked, “Why would you say that falling autumn leaves are old photographs? How are they alike?” This questioning procedure made it possible to determine whether subjects perceived the ground of a metaphor to be the same as that designated by the adult judges. Scoring
Responses were scored in two ways. First, the percentage of times each type of completion was chosen out of the number of times it appeared on the task was tabulated for each subject. Second, in order to investigate whether a subject chose a completion with a different ground in mind than ours, responses were also scored according to the subjects’ explanations of the ground. For example, a subject might choose Fulling autumn leaves are old photographs and explain that “old photographs turn yellow like leaves.” In such a case, the response would be scored as “color.” This method of scoring was carried out by two judges who achieved 94% agreement. Because of the high task demands of written responses for the younger children, only those elementary school children in the oral condition were scored in this way. From eighth grade through college, subjects’ written responses were evaluated in this way. In order
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ET AL.
to code all of the responses, two additional scoring categories proved necessary: (1) metonymic (associative) links between topic and vehicle (e.g., for Falling autumn leaves are old photographs, “you can take a picture of leaves”), and (2) inability to articulate a rationale (e.g., “I don’t know” or merely repeating the topic and vehicle). RESULTS Type and Number of Grounds Preferred
A comparison of the effect of the mode of presentation for subjects in grades 3, 5, and 6 revealed no significant differences in the ANOVAs described below for any ground, whether first choice alone or first and second choices summed was the dependent variable. Consequently, subjects in both conditions are included in the following analyses, as are the first graders in the oral condition and the subjects in eighth grade through college who received the written version. In order to evaluate the interaction of age and ground, a set of nonindependent analyses of variance was performed on the percentage of times each kind of completion was chosen as a first choice. At the same time, the linearity of age differences was tested using orthogonal trend analysis, with the coefficients adjusted for unequal age intervals (Robson, 1959). Both types of tests were also performed using summed first and second choices as the dependent variable. Because similar results were obtained, only the results for first choice are reported here. The results of these analyses and of Newman-Keuls post hoc tests are presented in Table 2. Clear age trends emerged from these analyses. As predicted, preferences shifted from static-perceptual grounds (shape and color) to dynamic-perceptual grounds (movement and sound) to conceptual grounds. Combination grounds were preferred at all ages over any single ground (except for first graders, who showed an equal preference for shape metaphors). Literal completions declined with age, but increased in the 8th and 10th grades. As a further test of age trends, the preferred ground of each subject was determined. All but nine subjects demonstrated a preference for one type of ground over all others, and these nine subjects (who chose two or more grounds at equally high frequencies) were excluded from this analysis. A log-linear analysis (Goodman, 1970) was performed in order to make comparisons similar to those reported above for the percentage use of each ground. Again, the linearity of age trends was evaluated. In order to provide sufficient cell sizes, the static-perceptual grounds, color and shape, were collapsed into one category, as were the dynamic-perceptual grounds, sound and movement. In addition, pairs of grades were collapsed (l-3, 5-6, 8-10, 12-college). The collapsed data are shown in Table 3.
METAPHOR
143
As before, age proved significant (x2 = 45.60, df = 12, p -C .OOl), and the linear trends show a significant decrease with age in preference for static-perceptual grounds (t = -2.13, df = 128, p < .05) and a significant increase with age in preference for conceptual grounds (t = 2.82, df = 128, p < .Ol). As Table 3 shows, however, there is considerable variability in preference within each grade pair, suggesting the presence of individual differences in metaphor preferences in addition to systematic age differences. Salience
A one-way ANOVA was performed on the number of summed first and second choices based on salient properties of the topic. In this analysis, age proved significant [F(7, 137) = 4.135, p <.OOll. First and third graders chose fewer salient grounds than fifth and sixth graders, with older subjects at an intermediate level (Newman-Keuls, p < .05). Explication
of Grounds
The grounds articulated by subjects in grades l-6 in the oral administration of the task were compared to the grounds assigned to the metaphors by the adult judges. Agreement between the two sets of scores increased over age from 62% in first grade to 74% in sixth grade. The increased concurrence resulted from several factors: a decrease in the number of times a subject proved unable to offer an explication; an increased ability to articulate both grounds of a combination metaphor; and fewer associative, nonmetaphorical links between the two terms, especially in conceptual metaphors. From eighth grade through college, subjects gave the same ground as the judges on 84% or more of the metaphors. Examination of explications from first grade through college revealed that even the youngest children encountered little difficulty explicating perceptual grounds, whether static (color and shape) or dynamic (sound and movement). However, when first and third graders chose conceptual metaphors (e.g., Falling autumn leaves are old photographs}, they offered appropriate conceptual explications only one-fifth of the time. The rest of the time they divided their responses equally between positing associative connections (“Sometimes you take pictures of leaves,“) or perceptual ones (“Leaves land in a pile, and so do old pictures, because they get messy over time”). By fifth grade, children were able to explicate two-thirds of their conceptual selections appropriately; with age, these explications became increasingly articulate. For instance, a tenth grader wrote, “Autumn leaves and old photos both represent something that was once alive and has now become old, faded, and decaying-both seem lost and sad.”
24
20
14
Movement
16
15
11
Sound
16
18
19
Color
23
23
19
18
TABLE FOR GROUNDS:
2 MEAN
22
24
11
17
18
6
25
18
6
16
12 (n = 15)
PERCENTAGES ___~
8 10 (n = 15) (n = IS) .-~ ___~~___~ 19 16
Grade 6 (n = 21)
OF PREFERENCES
5 (n = 21)
27
3 (n = 21)
DEVELOPMENT
20
27
1 (n = 15)
Shape
Completion type
THE
ANOVA
22
19
8
C (n = 15) ~ ~__ 17
AND
ANOVA
results
< .05
,001 .OOl 10, 12, < <
Overall F(7, 130) = 2.31, p < .05 Linear F(1, 130) = 3.90, ns Newman-Keuls: no significant pairwise differences
Overall F(7, 130) = 4.87, p < .OOl Linear F(1, 130) = 8.49, p < .Ol Newman-Keuls: 6, 8, > 1, 3,5 (10, 12, C intermediate), p c .05
Overall F(7, 130) = 6.81, p < .OOl Linear F(1, 130) = 36.18, p < .OOl Newman-Keuls: 1, 3, 5, 6 > 10, 12, C (8 intermediate), p S .05
Overall F(7, 130) = 4.13, p Linear F(1, 130) = 16.67, p Newman-Keuls: 1, 5 > 6, C (3, 8 intermediate),b p
RESULTS
27
44
Combination
Literal
37
30
10
18
31
12
15
34
11
26
27
25
28
34
24
12
38
27
10
33
31
.05
= 13.36. p < .OO] = 81.07, p < .OOl 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, <
Overall F(7, 130) = 5.20, Linear F(1, 130) = 20.52, Newman-Keuls: 1, 3, > C (8, 10 intermediate),
p S .05
5, 6, 12,
p < .OOl p < .OOl
Overall F(7, 130) = 1.34, ns Linear F(1, 130) = 4.13, p < .05 Newman-Keuls: no significant pairwise differences
Overall F(7, 130) LinearF(1, 130) Newman-Keuls: 10, 12, c, p s
a Numbers refer to the percentage of times particular grounds were chosen out of the total number of times these grounds appeared. b Subjects in grades 1 and 5 chose significantly more shape metaphors than subjects in grades 6, 10, 12, and college (C), while subjects in grades 3 and 8 selected shape metaphors at an intermediate frequency.
9
Conceptual
E
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ET AL.
TABLE CONTINGENCY
TABLE
OF NUMBER
3
OF SUBJECTS IN EACH GRADE PREFERRING
EACH GROUND
Ground Grade 1, 3 5, 6 8, 10 12, c Total
Staticperceptual
Dynamicperceptual
Conceptual
Literal
Combination
Total
6 8 3 0
2 6 1 2
0 I 2 11
16 8 9 4
8 18 12 12
30 36 25 26
17
11
14
35
50
117
DISCUSSION In addition to shedding some light on the relationship between metaphoric production, comprehension, and preference, the results reveal the development of preferences for different metaphorical grounds, and for literal vs metaphorical language. The hypothesized shift of preferences from “obvious” to “subtle” metaphors was evident in the grounds preferred throughout development. The metaphorical grounds which grade school children initially find appealing are the static-perceptual properties of shape and color, grounds which are among the earliest metaphors that children themselves produce (Winner, 1979). Concurrent with evidence that color gives way to form as a basis for classification (Bruner, Olver, & Greenfield, 1966), shape appears to be an important and sufficiently interesting feature of objects to also remain a moderately appealing ground for metaphors at later ages. Color, on the other hand, may be too superficial or accidental a characteristic to satisfy adult aesthetic standards. The developing appreciation for dynamic-perceptual grounds reflects a shift away from grounds based on strictly visual, static, relatively constant features of an object, toward ones based on more abstract and transient properties. This shift continues as preferences move to conceptual grounds. Contrary to hypothesis, combination grounds did not reflect the degrounds were strongly velopmental shift in preferences. Combination preferred across the age spectrum. The clear preference for combination grounds over any single ground is especially notable since it pertained to all combinations of grounds. There are several possible explanations for this finding. It may be that the number of properties shared by a topic and vehicle is not an index of a metaphor’s degree of subtlety and tension. Or perhaps it is only metaphors based on more than two grounds which are low in tension and subtlety. It is also possible that demand characteristics enhanced the selections of combination grounds: such grounds require more explanation, and “more” may well be perceived
METAPHOR
147
as desirable by experimental subjects. And finally, given the difficulty of specifying the precise number of features which two elements share (Goodman, 1972), our analysis may have been incorrect: that is, metaphors which were allegedly based on dual grounds may have been perceived as singly grounded, or vice versa. Also contrary to hypothesis, the tendency to favor grounds based on salient topic properties did not decline, but rather increased in the fifth and sixth grades. Overall, it appears that changes in aesthetic preferences are based more on the type of ground (e.g., shape vs movement) than on the salience of the ground with respect to its topic. The increased appeal of salient grounds in the late grade school years may reflect some aspect of the “literal” concerns often attributed to this period (Gardner and Winner, 1982; Gardner et al., 1978). Perhaps paralleling their development as nonegocentric communicators (Krauss & Glucksberg, 1969; Piaget, 1955), children of this age frequently expressed an interest in through their selections. A topic’s “conveying the most information” salient trait may be seen as its most relevant property and hence, perhaps, the type of information which should be highlighted in a metaphor. It should be noted, however, that what younger children deem as salient may be different from what adults judge as salient. Thus, it is possible that younger children were choosing grounds based on salient topic properties just as often as older children, although their choices were based on properties which adults consider low in salience. The hypothesized increase, during grade school, in the proclivity for literal completions was not found. The youngest subjects preferred literal over metaphorical completions, and grade school subjects then demonstrated a decreased attraction to literal completions. This decline suggests that when encouraged by the “rules of the game” to be metaphorical rather than literal, appreciation for metaphorical language increases with age. A comparison to the domain of metaphor production may prove illuminating here. When requested to produce metaphors in an experimental setting, performance increases linearly with age (Winner et al., 1979). However, in spontaneous speech, metaphoric production declines during the grade school years (Billow, 1981; Gardner & Winner, 1982; Marti, Note 1; Snyder, Note 2). An analagous difference may well exist between these experimentally elicited metaphor preferences and preferences for metaphorical vs literal language outside of an experimental setting. An unexpected rise in literal selections occurred in adolescence. Strong literal preferences distinguished one-quarter of the 8th and 10th graders from the rest of their classmates, who displayed no rise in literalism. It is possible that this represents a regression to an earlier pattern of preferences (cf. Carey, Diamond, & Woods, 1980). However, unlike the youngest children who preferred literal completions, 8th and 10th graders
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demonstrated an explicit awareness of what they were rejecting, often articulating a defiance of the nonliteral and announcing a preference for unadorned modes of expression. It may well be that just as the grade school child is absorbed in learning and obeying the “rules of the game,” the adolescent is strongly invested in defying, or explicitly testing, the “rules.” As one 10th grader wrote, “I like to be more exact about things and more direct.” If such a literal preference is part of the young adolescent’s personal indentity and self-presentation, it is a seemingly transient one-for by 12th grade and college “litetahsm” has again diminished. A comparison of the results obtained here with those of studies of metaphor comprehension suggests that children may understand a particular kind of metaphor quite some time before they like this same metaphor. While fifth graders typically understand conceptual metaphors (Winner et al., 1976), and while children of this age were able to explain the conceptual metaphors that they chose on the present metaphor preference task, it was not until 10th grade that children showed a general preference for conceptual metaphors. Thus, appreciation of metaphors may lag considerably behind their comprehension. In order to confirm the suggested decalage between comprehension and appreciation, however, it would be necessary to assess comprehension of all metaphors on the preference task, to determine understanding of metaphors not chosen as well as those chosen. A longitudinal design would enable further confirmation and insight into this possible decalage. A point about task performance deserves mention. Across the wide age span, subjects were seriously engaged in the task. Evidence that subjects of all ages responded consistently to the multiple-choice task inheres in the fact that subjects rarely chose grounds which they could not explain. Moreover, preferences of the younger subjects were no more random than selections of the older subjects, a finding which differs from previous research (Malgady, 1977). Indeed, the fact that subjects at all ages responded consistently provides support for the a priori classification of metaphors in terms of ground which was used in this task. The results of this study help to clarify the relation between the production, comprehension, and appreciation of metaphors. First of all, as has been found with production and comprehension, metaphoric preferences are characterized by systematic age trends, and are not simply a function of idiosyncratic taste. Second, although appreciation may lag behind comprehension in time, the sequence of types of metaphors preferred with age mirrors both comprehension and production. Just as children understand and produce perceptually based metaphors before conceptually grounded ones, so children also appreciate perceptual metaphors before they begin to like conceptual ones. However, unlike in the case of the spontaneous production of metaphor, in which children
METAPHOR
149
become increasingly literal during the grade school years, literalism in preferences seems to occur considerably later, during the adolescent years. But, as discussed earlier, this finding may well reflect the experimental task demands: elementary school children may have recognized that metaphorical rather than literal choices were called for and thus responded accordingly; and adolescents may have acted to defy rather than conform to the rules. The developmental pattern of metaphor preferences suggested by these data reflects a general evolution in the child’s perception of the world. On diverse tasks, such as those devised by Piaget, young children focus solely on perceptual appearances of stimuli and then with age become capable of transcending perceptual cues to construe events on a conceptual plane. Research in the domain of social cognition also indicates that children shift from categorizing people on the basis of external, perceptual features to categorizations based on more abstract, nonperceptual, and psychological facets (Livesley & Bromley, 1973; Peevers & Secord, 1973). Thus, development in metaphor preferences partakes of basic developmental trends. REFERENCES Billow,
R. M. A. Cognitive-developmental study of metaphor comprehension. DevelopPsychology, 1975, 11, 415-423. Billow, R. M. Spontaneous metaphor in childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1981, 31, 430-445. Bruner, J. S., Olver, R. R.. & Greenfield, P. M. Studies in cognitive growth. New York: Wiley, 1966. Carey, S., Diamond, R., & Woods, B. Maturational determination of the developmental course of face encoding. In D. Caplan (Ed.), Biological studies of mental processes. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980. Cicone, M., Gardner, H., & Winner. E. Understanding the psychology in psychological metaphors. Journal of Child Language, 1981, 8, (l), 213-216. Gardner, H., & Winner, E. First intimations of artistry. In S. Strauss (Ed.), U-shaped behavioral growth. New York: Academic Press, 1982. Gardner, H., Winner, E., Bechhofer, R., & Wolf, D. The development of figurative language. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Children’s language. New York: Gardner, 1978. Goodman, L. A. The multivariate analysis of qualitative data: Interactions among multiple classifications. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1970, 65, 226-256. Goodman, N. Seven strictures on similarity. In Problems and Projects, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. Krauss, R. M., & Glucksberg, S. The development of communication: Competence as a function of age. Child Development, 1969, 40, 255-266. Livesley, W. J., & Bromley, D. B. Person perception in childhood and adolescence. London: Wiley, 1973. Malgady, R. G. Children’s interpretation and appreciation of similes. Child Development, 1977, 48, 1734-1738. Nelson, K., Rescorla, L., Gruendel, J., & Benedict, H. Early lexicons: What do they mean? Child Development, 1978, 49(4), 960-968. Ortony, A. Beyond literal similarity. Psychological Review, 1979, 86, 161-180. mental
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Peevers, B. H., & Secord, P. F. Developmental changes in attribution of descriptive concepts to persons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973,27, 120-128. Piaget, J. The language and thought of the child. New York: Meridian, 1955. Pollio, M., & Pickens, J. P. The developmental structure of figurative competence. In R. P. Honeck & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), Cognition and figurative language. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1980. Pollio, M., & Pollio, H. The development of figurative language in children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1974, 3, 18.5-201. Reynolds, R. & Ortony, A. Some issues in the measurement of children’s comprehension of metaphorical language. Child Development, 1980, 51, 1110-l 119. Richards, I. A. The philosophy ofrheforic. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1936. Robson, D. S. A simple method for constructing orthogonal polynomials when the independent variable is unequally spaced. Biometrics, 1959, 15, 187-191. Tourangeau, R., & Stemberg, R. J. Aptness in metaphor. Cognitive Psychology, 1981, 13, 27-55. Winner, E. New names for old things: The emergence of metaphoric language. Journal of Child Language, 1979, 6(3), 469-491. Winner, E., McCarthy, M., & Gardner, H. The ontogenesis of metaphor. In R. Honeck & R. Hoffman (Eds.), Cognition and hgurative language. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1980. Winner, E., McCarthy, M., Kleinman, S., & Gardner, H. First metaphors. New Directions for Child Development, 1979, 3, 29-41. Winner, E., Rosenstiel, A. K., & Gardner, H. The development of metaphoric understanding, Developmental Psychology, 1976, 12, 289-297.
REFERENCE 1. Marti, E. La pens&e analogique fondees
sur la resemblance.
chez l’enfant
Unpublished
NOTES de 2 a 7 ans: Etude
genetique
des liaisons
doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva,
1979. 2. Snyder, J. The spontaneous production offigurative language and word play by grade school children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boston University, 1979. RECEIVED:
April 21, 1981;
REVISED:
August 20, 1981, October 16, 1981.
OF EXPERIMENTAL
CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
34,
135-150 (1982)
Autumn Leaves and Old Photographs: The Development of Metaphor Preferences LISA SILBERSTEIN,
HOWARD GARDNER, ERIN PHELPS Harvard
University
AND ELLEN Boston
College
WINNER
and Harvard
University
In order to determine the development of preferences for different types of metaphors, a metaphor preferences task was designed. Subjects at seven ages, from 6 through 20 years, received incomplete sentences followed by metaphorical and literal completions, and were asked to select their preferred completions. The pattern of preferences shifted with age. Metaphors based on grounds involving color or shape were preferred by the youngest subjects: metaphors based on movement or sound were preferred by subjects of intermediate age; and metaphors based on nonperceptual, conceptual grounds were preferred by the oldest subjects. At all ages the most frequently chosen metaphors were those based on a combination of two grounds (e.g., color and shape). Preference for literal completions declined with age, but there was an increase in literal selections in the 8th and 10th grades. This study demonstrates the systematic development of aesthetic preferences in the domain of figurative language.
As a result of recent research in metaphor, much knowledge has been obtained about the development of skills in metaphoric production and comprehension. For instance, we know that children begin to produce The research reported here was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BNS 13099) and the National Institute of Education (G-78-0031). Portions of this paper were presented at the American Educational Research Association, 1980. We are grateful to the following individuals for their help: Arnold Lanni, Assistant Superintendent, Arlington Public Schools; Mary Murphy, Principal, Dallin School, Arlington Public Schools; Thomas Trevisani, English Department Chairman, Arlington High School; Charles Christensen, Principal, Arlington Junior High East; Ellen Krim, Director, Lesley-Ellis Preschool; and the many teachers and students who contributed to this research. We also thank Margaret McCarthy Herzig and Eve Mendelsohn for their assistance in the conduct of this research. Reprint requests should be sent to Ellen Winner, Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. 135 0022-0%5/82/040135-16$02.00/0 Copyright 0 1982 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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metaphors during the initial stages of language acquisition (Billow, I981 ; Nelson, Rescorla, Gruendel, & Benedict, 1978; Winner, 1979; Winner, McCarthy, & Gardner, 1980). These early metaphors are often based on perceptual features of objects, features such as shape (calling a piece of string a “snake”), color (calling a red and white stop sign a “candy cane”), or shape and color combined (calling a yellow plastic baseball bat “corn”) (Winner, 1979). Only in the mid-elementary school years do children begin to create metaphors based on less obvious, nonperceptual properties such as affective states (calling an angry person a “volcano”) (Gardner, Winner, Bechhofer, & Wolf, 1978). Moreover, while young children produce a relatively high number of metaphors in their spontaneous speech, the frequency of spontaneous metaphoric production declines during the middle childhood years (Billow, 1981; Gardner & Winner, 1982; Pollio & Pollio, 1974; Marti, Note 1; Snyder, Note 2). [No decline, however, is found in experimentally elicited metaphoric production (Winner, McCarthy, Kleinman. & Gardner, 1979).] This decline in spontaneous metaphorical usage has led some observers to describe the middle and late elementary school years as a conventional “literal” stage during which children eschew figurative language in favor of mastering the rules of conventional usage (Gardner et al., 1978; Gardner & Winner, 1982). The spontaneous production of metaphors rises again in adolescence and adulthood, but this rise occurs most steeply among those who go on to become writers (Gardner & Winner, 1982). The developmental course of comprehension is a simpler one: The ability to understand metaphors increases steadily with age (Billow, 1975; Reynolds & Ortony, 1980; Pollio & Pickens, 1980; Pollio & Pollio, 1974; Winner, Rosenstiel, & Gardner, 1976). Paralleling the course of production, children are first only able to understand perceptually based metaphors; conceptually grounded metaphors are not well understood until the middle school years (Cicone, Gardner, & Winner, 1981; Winner et al., 1976, 1979). It is only in the late elementary school years that children are able to explain the metaphors that they understand. Although a considerable amount is known about how children come to make and understand simple metaphors, very little is known about the kinds of metaphors that children of different ages find appealing. One study demonstrated that children’s metaphor preferences become increasingly consistent with age (Malgady, 1977). Another study of adult preferences suggested that the aptness of a metaphor correlates with the relative positions of the topic (the first term of the metaphor) and the vehicle (the second term) within their respective semantic spaces (Tourangeau & Sternberg, 1981). But the very factor that this study held constant-the type of similarity between the two terms (the ground)may itself determine a metaphor’s appeal. That is, metaphors based on certain kinds of grounds may prove more or less appealing by virtue of their ground.
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One approach to understanding the development of metaphoric preferences is to consider the kinds of grounds that children of different ages find appealing.’ Studies of metaphoric production and comprehension yield some clues about the kinds of grounds that are likely to be preferred at different ages. If the developmental course of metaphoric preference is parallel to comprehension, a preference for more obvious metaphors (such as ones based on perceptual properties of objects) should precede a liking for more subtle metaphors (such as ones that are conceptually based). And if there is, in fact, a conventional “literal” stage, children in the middle elementary school years should reject metaphors of any kind, preferring instead more “precise,” literal uses of language. In the present study, subjects between first grade and college were given incomplete sentences along with a choice of several metaphorical endings and one literal ending for each sentence. To test the hypothesis of a shift from obvious to subtle preferences, metaphorical completions varied on three dimensions: type of ground on which they were based; the number of grounds on which they were based; and the salience of the ground with respect to the topic. a. Type of ground. Three types of grounds were used in the construction of items: (1) shape and color represented static-perceptual grounds, qualities which the senses perceive immediately or in a brief span of time; (2) sound and movement represented dynamic-perceptual grounds, properties which are typically experienced over a period of time; and (3) conceptual grounds were based on abstract, nonperceptual qualities, either static or dynamic (e.g., calm, permanence, liberation). It was hypothesized that static-perceptual grounds were the most obvious and would be preferred by the youngest subjects; dynamic-perceptual grounds would be preferred by late elementary school subjects; and conceptual grounds, the least obvious, would be preferred by adolescents and adults. 6. Number ofgrounds. Metaphorical completions were based on either a single ground or a combination of two grounds. Metaphors based on only one ground were hypothesized to be less obvious because they are characterized by greater “tension,” i.e., conceptual distance between topic and vehicle (Richards, 1936). For example, a metaphorical equation ’ It should be noted that it is difficult to determine with certainty the ground of any particular metaphor. This is because any two objects share an infinite number of properties (Goodman, 1972). Thus, while a metaphor equating a string with a snake may appear to be grounded simply on shape, it is certainly possible that this equation is also based on other shared properties [e.g., location (both lie on the grass), texture (the string may be slimy), or movement (the string may move in water in a snake-like fashion)]. Thus, any division of metaphors according to ground is open to challenge. Nonetheless, on the basis of the developmental literature on metaphor, it is possible to anticipate some consistent trends in the development of preferences for different types of grounds. If these predictions are supported, support will be cbtained for the a priori classification of metaphors according to ground.
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of a snowflake and a twirling ballerina, which is based on a single ground (movement), appears to possess more tension than an equation of a snowflake and a falling paper airplane, which is based on two grounds (movement and color). It was predicted that preference for metaphors based on dual grounds would decline with age, reflecting an increasing appreciation for less obvious, more tense, metaphors. c. Salience of ground with respect to the topic. Metaphorical completions were constructed so that either high or low salient properties of the topics were represented by the grounds. A salient property of an object is one of its most obvious and distinctive aspects, one which is most likely to be listed first if people are asked to describe this object (cf. Ortony, 1979). For instance the color of a stop sign is probably a more salient property than its shape.’ High and low salient properties of each topic were empirically determined (as will be described in more detail below) and grounds were constructed accordingly. It was hypothesized that a preference for metaphors based on highly salient properties of the topic would give way to an appreciation for those based on less salient properties of the topic. To test the hypothesis of a “literal” stage in which children prefer literal to metaphorical language, literal completions were included with metaphorical ones for each item. It was predicted that preference for metaphorical over literal completions would follow a U-shaped curve, declining during the mid-elementary school years but increasing again in high school and adulthood. METHOD
Subjects One hundred and thirty-eight subjects (with approximately equal numbers of boys and girls at each age) participated in this study. Fifteen subjects in each of grades 3 (age 8), 5 (age IO), 6 (age ll), 8 (age 13), 10 (age 15), 12 (age 17), and college (age 20) received a written version of the task; and 15 subjects in grade 1 (age 6) and 6 subjects in each of grades 3, 5, and 6 received an oral version of the task. The two versions ’ Ortony (1979) has argued that the ground of a metaphor links a highly salient feature of the vehicle and a low salient feature of the topic. He argues that sentences which link two objects on the basis of highly salient properties of each are not metaphors but are literal comparisons. While we accept the point that literal comparisons are often based on highly salient properties of two objects (e.g., “A candle is like a torch”), we also believe that metaphorical comparisons can be similarly constructed. For example, in “Clouds are cotton balls,” the properties of whiteness and fluffiness are highly salient to both terms. What distinguishes metaphors based on highly salient properties of the topic is that they are more “obvious” than those based on low salient properties. Thus, a metaphor based on the color of a stop sign is likely to be more obvious, more immediately apprehendable. than one based on its shape.
METAPHOR
139
were employed because it was necessary to administer an oral test to the youngest children. The oral version was administered to the six subjects in each of grades 3, 5, and 6 in order to determine whether mode of representation affected performance. Subjects were drawn from schools serving a primarily middle-class population, and were selected at random from their classrooms. College subjects, whose fields of concentration represented a cross section of academic disciplines, were randomly selected from an undergraduate psychology course. Materials
A metaphor preferences task, consisting of 25 items, was constructed. Each item consisted of an incomplete sentence followed by five possible endings. Seven kinds of completions were rotated throughout the task. Five kinds of completions yielded metaphorical sentences, each based on a different ground: (1) shape, (2) color, (3) sound, (4) movement, and (5) conceptual. The sixth kind of completion was based on a combination of any two grounds from 1 to 5. The seventh type of completion yielded a nonmetaphorical, literal sentence. Completions were equal in length, and their order was randomized across items. Sample items are contained in Table 1. The full set of items used is available from the authors on request. As part of the task construction, 15 adults were each given 25 metaphors and were asked to specify their grounds. Through this method, the ground of each of the 125 metaphors (25 items x 5 completions) was assessed by three judges. No metaphorical completion was included on the task if judges failed to agree on its ground. Four of the five completions for each item yielded metaphorical grounds, so that each single ground appeared on 20 items. The remaining choice on each item consisted of either a literal completion (12 items) or a combination ground (13 items). The two grounds within the combination ground were drawn from all of the five single grounds, and the two grounds appearing in a combination ground were always offered as single metaphorical grounds on that item. During pilot testing, several anomalous choices (i.e., neither metaphorical nor literal completions of the sentence) were included in the task in order to ascertain whether children ever made their selections randomly or on the basis of the vehicle alone, regardless of its relation to the topic. Since no anomalous completions were selected during the course of extensive piloting, they were not included in the final task. In order to investigate whether particularly salient properties of a topic guide preference for grounds, a measure of salient characteristics was obtained for the 25 topics. Ten adult judges were asked to decide which of the five types of properties (shape, color, sound, movement, concep-
140
SILBERSTEIN TABLE SAMPLE
ET AL. 1 ITEMS
The popped red ballon is a limp washcloth (shape) a bottle of ketchup (color) a washed away sandcastle (conceptual: impermanence) an empty auditorium after a concert (sound) an apple peel (combination: color and shape) A wave in the ocean is a curl of hair (shape) a burst of energy in a tired runner (conceptual: a surge or increase) a stack of dishes crashing (sound) a lion springing in attack (movement) water that goes up and down (literal) The rattle snake was a long rope (shape) __ soap sliding along the bathtub (movement) a hissing kettle (sound) a storm cloud (conceptual: impending danger) an animal in the grass (literal) A traffic jam is . __ many cars in one place (literal) a barnyard of noisy animals (sound) getting your zipper stuck half-way (conceptual: obstruction) dominoes in a row (shape) __ a creeping caterpillar (movement) The streetlights along the dark highway are fireflies in the air (color) __ lightbulbs on tall poles (literal) a connect-the-dots puzzle (shape) guards standing still at attention (movement) __ lonely people (conceptual: separation) The volcano is a very angry man (conceptual: loss of control) tomato sauce boiling over a pot (combination: color and conceptual) a bright fire truck (color) a roaring lion (sound) __ a whale spouting water (movement) The snowflake is a gentle kiss (conceptual: delicacy) __ a twirling ballerina (movement) a falling paper airplane (combination: a silent street (sound)
color and movement) __~~_
-~..
METAPHOR
141
tual) were salient properties of each topic. Choices were marked as being salient for one or more grounds when 80% or more of the judges agreed on the salient characteristic(s) of a topic (e.g., color and movement were deemed salient for fulling autumn leaves). In 17 of the 25 items, at least one of the choices offered was marked as salient with respect to the topic. Procedure
Subjects were told that poems ofteninvolve “interesting and different names for things” and that the experimenters wanted to find out what kinds of poems people like best. In order to introduce the task, the experimenter then read aloud a sample incomplete sentence with seven different completions, articulating for the subjects the ground of each comparison. In both oral and written administrations of the task, the experimenter read each item aloud twice as a series of five complete sentences. For each item, subjects were asked to select the completion they liked best. The choices were then read again, and subjects were asked to choose their second favorite. In the oral version, children were seen individually. Subjects given the written version were tested as a group in their classrooms. In addition to indicating their preferences, subjects were asked to state or record the grounds of the completions that they selected. For example, after choosing the metaphor “Falling autumn leaves, are old photographs,” the subject was asked, “Why would you say that falling autumn leaves are old photographs? How are they alike?” This questioning procedure made it possible to determine whether subjects perceived the ground of a metaphor to be the same as that designated by the adult judges. Scoring
Responses were scored in two ways. First, the percentage of times each type of completion was chosen out of the number of times it appeared on the task was tabulated for each subject. Second, in order to investigate whether a subject chose a completion with a different ground in mind than ours, responses were also scored according to the subjects’ explanations of the ground. For example, a subject might choose Fulling autumn leaves are old photographs and explain that “old photographs turn yellow like leaves.” In such a case, the response would be scored as “color.” This method of scoring was carried out by two judges who achieved 94% agreement. Because of the high task demands of written responses for the younger children, only those elementary school children in the oral condition were scored in this way. From eighth grade through college, subjects’ written responses were evaluated in this way. In order
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ET AL.
to code all of the responses, two additional scoring categories proved necessary: (1) metonymic (associative) links between topic and vehicle (e.g., for Falling autumn leaves are old photographs, “you can take a picture of leaves”), and (2) inability to articulate a rationale (e.g., “I don’t know” or merely repeating the topic and vehicle). RESULTS Type and Number of Grounds Preferred
A comparison of the effect of the mode of presentation for subjects in grades 3, 5, and 6 revealed no significant differences in the ANOVAs described below for any ground, whether first choice alone or first and second choices summed was the dependent variable. Consequently, subjects in both conditions are included in the following analyses, as are the first graders in the oral condition and the subjects in eighth grade through college who received the written version. In order to evaluate the interaction of age and ground, a set of nonindependent analyses of variance was performed on the percentage of times each kind of completion was chosen as a first choice. At the same time, the linearity of age differences was tested using orthogonal trend analysis, with the coefficients adjusted for unequal age intervals (Robson, 1959). Both types of tests were also performed using summed first and second choices as the dependent variable. Because similar results were obtained, only the results for first choice are reported here. The results of these analyses and of Newman-Keuls post hoc tests are presented in Table 2. Clear age trends emerged from these analyses. As predicted, preferences shifted from static-perceptual grounds (shape and color) to dynamic-perceptual grounds (movement and sound) to conceptual grounds. Combination grounds were preferred at all ages over any single ground (except for first graders, who showed an equal preference for shape metaphors). Literal completions declined with age, but increased in the 8th and 10th grades. As a further test of age trends, the preferred ground of each subject was determined. All but nine subjects demonstrated a preference for one type of ground over all others, and these nine subjects (who chose two or more grounds at equally high frequencies) were excluded from this analysis. A log-linear analysis (Goodman, 1970) was performed in order to make comparisons similar to those reported above for the percentage use of each ground. Again, the linearity of age trends was evaluated. In order to provide sufficient cell sizes, the static-perceptual grounds, color and shape, were collapsed into one category, as were the dynamic-perceptual grounds, sound and movement. In addition, pairs of grades were collapsed (l-3, 5-6, 8-10, 12-college). The collapsed data are shown in Table 3.
METAPHOR
143
As before, age proved significant (x2 = 45.60, df = 12, p -C .OOl), and the linear trends show a significant decrease with age in preference for static-perceptual grounds (t = -2.13, df = 128, p < .05) and a significant increase with age in preference for conceptual grounds (t = 2.82, df = 128, p < .Ol). As Table 3 shows, however, there is considerable variability in preference within each grade pair, suggesting the presence of individual differences in metaphor preferences in addition to systematic age differences. Salience
A one-way ANOVA was performed on the number of summed first and second choices based on salient properties of the topic. In this analysis, age proved significant [F(7, 137) = 4.135, p <.OOll. First and third graders chose fewer salient grounds than fifth and sixth graders, with older subjects at an intermediate level (Newman-Keuls, p < .05). Explication
of Grounds
The grounds articulated by subjects in grades l-6 in the oral administration of the task were compared to the grounds assigned to the metaphors by the adult judges. Agreement between the two sets of scores increased over age from 62% in first grade to 74% in sixth grade. The increased concurrence resulted from several factors: a decrease in the number of times a subject proved unable to offer an explication; an increased ability to articulate both grounds of a combination metaphor; and fewer associative, nonmetaphorical links between the two terms, especially in conceptual metaphors. From eighth grade through college, subjects gave the same ground as the judges on 84% or more of the metaphors. Examination of explications from first grade through college revealed that even the youngest children encountered little difficulty explicating perceptual grounds, whether static (color and shape) or dynamic (sound and movement). However, when first and third graders chose conceptual metaphors (e.g., Falling autumn leaves are old photographs}, they offered appropriate conceptual explications only one-fifth of the time. The rest of the time they divided their responses equally between positing associative connections (“Sometimes you take pictures of leaves,“) or perceptual ones (“Leaves land in a pile, and so do old pictures, because they get messy over time”). By fifth grade, children were able to explicate two-thirds of their conceptual selections appropriately; with age, these explications became increasingly articulate. For instance, a tenth grader wrote, “Autumn leaves and old photos both represent something that was once alive and has now become old, faded, and decaying-both seem lost and sad.”
24
20
14
Movement
16
15
11
Sound
16
18
19
Color
23
23
19
18
TABLE FOR GROUNDS:
2 MEAN
22
24
11
17
18
6
25
18
6
16
12 (n = 15)
PERCENTAGES ___~
8 10 (n = 15) (n = IS) .-~ ___~~___~ 19 16
Grade 6 (n = 21)
OF PREFERENCES
5 (n = 21)
27
3 (n = 21)
DEVELOPMENT
20
27
1 (n = 15)
Shape
Completion type
THE
ANOVA
22
19
8
C (n = 15) ~ ~__ 17
AND
ANOVA
results
< .05
,001 .OOl 10, 12, < <
Overall F(7, 130) = 2.31, p < .05 Linear F(1, 130) = 3.90, ns Newman-Keuls: no significant pairwise differences
Overall F(7, 130) = 4.87, p < .OOl Linear F(1, 130) = 8.49, p < .Ol Newman-Keuls: 6, 8, > 1, 3,5 (10, 12, C intermediate), p c .05
Overall F(7, 130) = 6.81, p < .OOl Linear F(1, 130) = 36.18, p < .OOl Newman-Keuls: 1, 3, 5, 6 > 10, 12, C (8 intermediate), p S .05
Overall F(7, 130) = 4.13, p Linear F(1, 130) = 16.67, p Newman-Keuls: 1, 5 > 6, C (3, 8 intermediate),b p
RESULTS
27
44
Combination
Literal
37
30
10
18
31
12
15
34
11
26
27
25
28
34
24
12
38
27
10
33
31
.05
= 13.36. p < .OO] = 81.07, p < .OOl 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, <
Overall F(7, 130) = 5.20, Linear F(1, 130) = 20.52, Newman-Keuls: 1, 3, > C (8, 10 intermediate),
p S .05
5, 6, 12,
p < .OOl p < .OOl
Overall F(7, 130) = 1.34, ns Linear F(1, 130) = 4.13, p < .05 Newman-Keuls: no significant pairwise differences
Overall F(7, 130) LinearF(1, 130) Newman-Keuls: 10, 12, c, p s
a Numbers refer to the percentage of times particular grounds were chosen out of the total number of times these grounds appeared. b Subjects in grades 1 and 5 chose significantly more shape metaphors than subjects in grades 6, 10, 12, and college (C), while subjects in grades 3 and 8 selected shape metaphors at an intermediate frequency.
9
Conceptual
E
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SILBERSTEIN
ET AL.
TABLE CONTINGENCY
TABLE
OF NUMBER
3
OF SUBJECTS IN EACH GRADE PREFERRING
EACH GROUND
Ground Grade 1, 3 5, 6 8, 10 12, c Total
Staticperceptual
Dynamicperceptual
Conceptual
Literal
Combination
Total
6 8 3 0
2 6 1 2
0 I 2 11
16 8 9 4
8 18 12 12
30 36 25 26
17
11
14
35
50
117
DISCUSSION In addition to shedding some light on the relationship between metaphoric production, comprehension, and preference, the results reveal the development of preferences for different metaphorical grounds, and for literal vs metaphorical language. The hypothesized shift of preferences from “obvious” to “subtle” metaphors was evident in the grounds preferred throughout development. The metaphorical grounds which grade school children initially find appealing are the static-perceptual properties of shape and color, grounds which are among the earliest metaphors that children themselves produce (Winner, 1979). Concurrent with evidence that color gives way to form as a basis for classification (Bruner, Olver, & Greenfield, 1966), shape appears to be an important and sufficiently interesting feature of objects to also remain a moderately appealing ground for metaphors at later ages. Color, on the other hand, may be too superficial or accidental a characteristic to satisfy adult aesthetic standards. The developing appreciation for dynamic-perceptual grounds reflects a shift away from grounds based on strictly visual, static, relatively constant features of an object, toward ones based on more abstract and transient properties. This shift continues as preferences move to conceptual grounds. Contrary to hypothesis, combination grounds did not reflect the degrounds were strongly velopmental shift in preferences. Combination preferred across the age spectrum. The clear preference for combination grounds over any single ground is especially notable since it pertained to all combinations of grounds. There are several possible explanations for this finding. It may be that the number of properties shared by a topic and vehicle is not an index of a metaphor’s degree of subtlety and tension. Or perhaps it is only metaphors based on more than two grounds which are low in tension and subtlety. It is also possible that demand characteristics enhanced the selections of combination grounds: such grounds require more explanation, and “more” may well be perceived
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as desirable by experimental subjects. And finally, given the difficulty of specifying the precise number of features which two elements share (Goodman, 1972), our analysis may have been incorrect: that is, metaphors which were allegedly based on dual grounds may have been perceived as singly grounded, or vice versa. Also contrary to hypothesis, the tendency to favor grounds based on salient topic properties did not decline, but rather increased in the fifth and sixth grades. Overall, it appears that changes in aesthetic preferences are based more on the type of ground (e.g., shape vs movement) than on the salience of the ground with respect to its topic. The increased appeal of salient grounds in the late grade school years may reflect some aspect of the “literal” concerns often attributed to this period (Gardner and Winner, 1982; Gardner et al., 1978). Perhaps paralleling their development as nonegocentric communicators (Krauss & Glucksberg, 1969; Piaget, 1955), children of this age frequently expressed an interest in through their selections. A topic’s “conveying the most information” salient trait may be seen as its most relevant property and hence, perhaps, the type of information which should be highlighted in a metaphor. It should be noted, however, that what younger children deem as salient may be different from what adults judge as salient. Thus, it is possible that younger children were choosing grounds based on salient topic properties just as often as older children, although their choices were based on properties which adults consider low in salience. The hypothesized increase, during grade school, in the proclivity for literal completions was not found. The youngest subjects preferred literal over metaphorical completions, and grade school subjects then demonstrated a decreased attraction to literal completions. This decline suggests that when encouraged by the “rules of the game” to be metaphorical rather than literal, appreciation for metaphorical language increases with age. A comparison to the domain of metaphor production may prove illuminating here. When requested to produce metaphors in an experimental setting, performance increases linearly with age (Winner et al., 1979). However, in spontaneous speech, metaphoric production declines during the grade school years (Billow, 1981; Gardner & Winner, 1982; Marti, Note 1; Snyder, Note 2). An analagous difference may well exist between these experimentally elicited metaphor preferences and preferences for metaphorical vs literal language outside of an experimental setting. An unexpected rise in literal selections occurred in adolescence. Strong literal preferences distinguished one-quarter of the 8th and 10th graders from the rest of their classmates, who displayed no rise in literalism. It is possible that this represents a regression to an earlier pattern of preferences (cf. Carey, Diamond, & Woods, 1980). However, unlike the youngest children who preferred literal completions, 8th and 10th graders
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demonstrated an explicit awareness of what they were rejecting, often articulating a defiance of the nonliteral and announcing a preference for unadorned modes of expression. It may well be that just as the grade school child is absorbed in learning and obeying the “rules of the game,” the adolescent is strongly invested in defying, or explicitly testing, the “rules.” As one 10th grader wrote, “I like to be more exact about things and more direct.” If such a literal preference is part of the young adolescent’s personal indentity and self-presentation, it is a seemingly transient one-for by 12th grade and college “litetahsm” has again diminished. A comparison of the results obtained here with those of studies of metaphor comprehension suggests that children may understand a particular kind of metaphor quite some time before they like this same metaphor. While fifth graders typically understand conceptual metaphors (Winner et al., 1976), and while children of this age were able to explain the conceptual metaphors that they chose on the present metaphor preference task, it was not until 10th grade that children showed a general preference for conceptual metaphors. Thus, appreciation of metaphors may lag considerably behind their comprehension. In order to confirm the suggested decalage between comprehension and appreciation, however, it would be necessary to assess comprehension of all metaphors on the preference task, to determine understanding of metaphors not chosen as well as those chosen. A longitudinal design would enable further confirmation and insight into this possible decalage. A point about task performance deserves mention. Across the wide age span, subjects were seriously engaged in the task. Evidence that subjects of all ages responded consistently to the multiple-choice task inheres in the fact that subjects rarely chose grounds which they could not explain. Moreover, preferences of the younger subjects were no more random than selections of the older subjects, a finding which differs from previous research (Malgady, 1977). Indeed, the fact that subjects at all ages responded consistently provides support for the a priori classification of metaphors in terms of ground which was used in this task. The results of this study help to clarify the relation between the production, comprehension, and appreciation of metaphors. First of all, as has been found with production and comprehension, metaphoric preferences are characterized by systematic age trends, and are not simply a function of idiosyncratic taste. Second, although appreciation may lag behind comprehension in time, the sequence of types of metaphors preferred with age mirrors both comprehension and production. Just as children understand and produce perceptually based metaphors before conceptually grounded ones, so children also appreciate perceptual metaphors before they begin to like conceptual ones. However, unlike in the case of the spontaneous production of metaphor, in which children
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become increasingly literal during the grade school years, literalism in preferences seems to occur considerably later, during the adolescent years. But, as discussed earlier, this finding may well reflect the experimental task demands: elementary school children may have recognized that metaphorical rather than literal choices were called for and thus responded accordingly; and adolescents may have acted to defy rather than conform to the rules. The developmental pattern of metaphor preferences suggested by these data reflects a general evolution in the child’s perception of the world. On diverse tasks, such as those devised by Piaget, young children focus solely on perceptual appearances of stimuli and then with age become capable of transcending perceptual cues to construe events on a conceptual plane. Research in the domain of social cognition also indicates that children shift from categorizing people on the basis of external, perceptual features to categorizations based on more abstract, nonperceptual, and psychological facets (Livesley & Bromley, 1973; Peevers & Secord, 1973). Thus, development in metaphor preferences partakes of basic developmental trends. REFERENCES Billow,
R. M. A. Cognitive-developmental study of metaphor comprehension. DevelopPsychology, 1975, 11, 415-423. Billow, R. M. Spontaneous metaphor in childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1981, 31, 430-445. Bruner, J. S., Olver, R. R.. & Greenfield, P. M. Studies in cognitive growth. New York: Wiley, 1966. Carey, S., Diamond, R., & Woods, B. Maturational determination of the developmental course of face encoding. In D. Caplan (Ed.), Biological studies of mental processes. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980. Cicone, M., Gardner, H., & Winner. E. Understanding the psychology in psychological metaphors. Journal of Child Language, 1981, 8, (l), 213-216. Gardner, H., & Winner, E. First intimations of artistry. In S. Strauss (Ed.), U-shaped behavioral growth. New York: Academic Press, 1982. Gardner, H., Winner, E., Bechhofer, R., & Wolf, D. The development of figurative language. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Children’s language. New York: Gardner, 1978. Goodman, L. A. The multivariate analysis of qualitative data: Interactions among multiple classifications. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1970, 65, 226-256. Goodman, N. Seven strictures on similarity. In Problems and Projects, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972. Krauss, R. M., & Glucksberg, S. The development of communication: Competence as a function of age. Child Development, 1969, 40, 255-266. Livesley, W. J., & Bromley, D. B. Person perception in childhood and adolescence. London: Wiley, 1973. Malgady, R. G. Children’s interpretation and appreciation of similes. Child Development, 1977, 48, 1734-1738. Nelson, K., Rescorla, L., Gruendel, J., & Benedict, H. Early lexicons: What do they mean? Child Development, 1978, 49(4), 960-968. Ortony, A. Beyond literal similarity. Psychological Review, 1979, 86, 161-180. mental
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Peevers, B. H., & Secord, P. F. Developmental changes in attribution of descriptive concepts to persons. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973,27, 120-128. Piaget, J. The language and thought of the child. New York: Meridian, 1955. Pollio, M., & Pickens, J. P. The developmental structure of figurative competence. In R. P. Honeck & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), Cognition and figurative language. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1980. Pollio, M., & Pollio, H. The development of figurative language in children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1974, 3, 18.5-201. Reynolds, R. & Ortony, A. Some issues in the measurement of children’s comprehension of metaphorical language. Child Development, 1980, 51, 1110-l 119. Richards, I. A. The philosophy ofrheforic. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1936. Robson, D. S. A simple method for constructing orthogonal polynomials when the independent variable is unequally spaced. Biometrics, 1959, 15, 187-191. Tourangeau, R., & Stemberg, R. J. Aptness in metaphor. Cognitive Psychology, 1981, 13, 27-55. Winner, E. New names for old things: The emergence of metaphoric language. Journal of Child Language, 1979, 6(3), 469-491. Winner, E., McCarthy, M., & Gardner, H. The ontogenesis of metaphor. In R. Honeck & R. Hoffman (Eds.), Cognition and hgurative language. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1980. Winner, E., McCarthy, M., Kleinman, S., & Gardner, H. First metaphors. New Directions for Child Development, 1979, 3, 29-41. Winner, E., Rosenstiel, A. K., & Gardner, H. The development of metaphoric understanding, Developmental Psychology, 1976, 12, 289-297.
REFERENCE 1. Marti, E. La pens&e analogique fondees
sur la resemblance.
chez l’enfant
Unpublished
NOTES de 2 a 7 ans: Etude
genetique
des liaisons
doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva,
1979. 2. Snyder, J. The spontaneous production offigurative language and word play by grade school children. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boston University, 1979. RECEIVED:
April 21, 1981;
REVISED:
August 20, 1981, October 16, 1981.