Are children more accurate than adults? Spontaneous use of metaphor by children and adults

This study examined an observation in which children outscored adults on a series of test questions, which included unusual items such as, "Do you see with your ears?" We assumed that the adults were treating the questions me taphorically because the literally correct answer was so obvious, an assump tion consistent with Grice's theory. In Study 1, we tested this assumption by manipulating pretest and test items so as to suggest, or not suggest, a metaphorical or factual response. In Study 2, we used a similar manipulatio n involving the order of questions of various sorts and we more directly te sted the Gricean hypothesis by giving college students a reason to treat th e question literally. The results replicated the previous finding in which college students' scores were lower than those of children, and the conditi on effects suggested that the college students' performance was due to thei r responding metaphorically.