Abstract
This study examined the underlying causes of children's ability to use abstract metaphors in everyday situations. Participants were 4-5 and 5-6 year old children, who were assigned to three conditions: symbolic play, context, and one-sentence conditions. In the symbolic play condition, children interacted with an experimenter and comprehended metaphors based on non-verbal contextual cues. Metaphoric sentences were presented without interactions in the other two conditions, but with verbal contextual cues in the context condition. The results indicated that children could comprehend abstract metaphors better during symbolic play than under the other two conditions. Further analyses suggested that emotions help children comprehend abstract metaphors.
