Seventy-one university students completed the Fullerton Language Test for Adolescents--Subtest on Idioms. Of the 18-21-year-old group, 51 percent fell within the "Competence Range," while 84 percent of the 22-29-year-old group and 91 percent of the 30-year-old or over group fell within this range. (Author/JDD)

Differences between metaphors and similes have often been overlooked in the experimental literature, and the comparison theory addressing comprehension of simile may be less appropriate to the more transformational properties of metaphor. It is proposed that one of the variables associated with the difference is affective response, leading to the…

Similes and metaphors were extracted from over 2,000 papers by students in grades 4, 8, 12, and the third year of college to study the effects of age, grade, sex, mode, and writing competence on these figures of writing. Students worked with more abstract forms as they grew older. (SLD)