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- Title
Are Horses Like Zebras, or Vice Versa? Children's Sensitivity to the Asymmetries of Directional Comparisons.
- Authors
Chestnut, Eleanor K.; Markman, Ellen M.
- Abstract
Adults exhibit strong preferences when framing symmetrical relations. Adults prefer, for example, "A zebra is like a horse" to "A horse is like a zebra," and "The bicycle is near the building" to "The building is near the bicycle." This is because directional syntax requires more typical or prominent items (i.e., reference points) to be placed in the complement position. Three experiments with children ages 4-8 (N = 181) explored whether children share this sensitivity to directional syntax. Children of this age showed an incipient preference for framing reference points as complements. Stating, "Girls do math as well as boys," which frames boys as the reference point for girls, may therefore actually teach children that boys set the standard.
- Subjects
SWITCH-reference (Grammar); SYNTAX (Grammar); PERCEPTION in children; CHILDREN; COMPLEMENTIZERS (Grammar); INDIVIDUALS' preferences; FRAMES (Linguistics)
- Publication
Child Development, 2016, Vol 87, Issue 2, p568
- ISSN
0009-3920
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.1111/cdev.12476