It is well established that the opportunity to compare learning stimuli in a novel word learning/extension task elicits a larger number of conceptually relevant generalizations than standard no-comparison conditions. I will present results suggesting that the effectiveness of comparison depends on factors such as semantic distance, number of training items, dimension distinctiveness and interactions with age. I will address these issues in the case of familiar and unfamiliar object nouns and relational nouns. The alignment strategies followed by children during learning and at test (i.e., when learning items are compared and how children reach a solution) will be described with eye-tracking data. We will also assess the extent to which children’s performance in these tasks are associated with executive functions (inhibition and flexibility) and world knowledge. Finally, we will consider these issues in children with cognitive deficits (Intellectual deficiency, DLD)

From a developmental standpoint, it has been argued that two major complementary factors contribute to the development of analogy comprehension: world knowledge and executive functions. Here I will provide evidence in support of the second view. Beyond paradigms that manipulate task difficulty (e.g., number and types of distractors and semantic distance between domains) we will provide eye-tracking data that describes differences in the way children and adults compare the base and target domains in analogy problems. We will follow the same approach with ageing people. This latter population provides a unique opportunity to disentangle the contribution of knowledge and executive processes in analogy making since knowledge is (more than) preserved and executive control is decreasing. Using this paradigm, I will show the extent to which world knowledge (assessed through vocabulary) compensates for decreasing executive control in older populations. Our eye-tracking data suggests that, to a certain extent, differences between younger and older adults are analogous to the differences between younger adults and children in the way they compare the base and the target domains in analogy problems.