• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.569-580
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to investigate opposites acquisition and tendency of processing negations about directional oppositionality from 3- to 6-old Korean children. The data were collected from 80 children from a daycare center and 20 university students in Busan, Korea. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to produce opposites for common terms related to colors, directions, and dimension adjectives. In Experiment 2, they were asked to make pictures corresponding to statements with negations(e. g. The arrow is NOT pointing up.). Summarizing the overall results, first, children over 5 considered 'blue' and 'red' as opposites colors in the case of not well-known color opposites. If there exists an opposite color, color opposites have been acquired from 6 year-olds, the directional opposites started from 3 year-olds, and the opposites of dimension adjectives did from 5 year-olds. Second, preferring the antipodal color opposites started from 6 and preferring the antipodal direction did from 3. Consequently, 3-to 6 year-old children acquired opposites at different age and opposites dimension. Also the opposites dimension have an effect on processing negation of young children.