Opposites and learning: preference for salient differences between objects

Abstract

Based on the assumption that the opposites are appropriate in learning tasks, this study investigates the children’s and adults’ responses to a series of stimulus that have been grouped into two categories: the more and the less opposites. The objective of this study is to know if the analysed individuals are more attracted by the objects that maintain a relation of high opposition than the objects that do not maintain this type of relation. Results show that children choose more the opposites than the adults. These results are discussed from the hypotheses that explain the difficulty of acquisition of antonyms and the hypotheses that consider them as adequate for learning tasks.