The research investigated the role of complexity and the hot-cool distinction in cognitive development. The 120, 3- to 6-year-old children completed four hot tasks, which involved an affective component and three cool tasks, which did not. All tasks included binary- and ternary-relational items. Complexity was a major source of difficulty on all tasks, especially for younger children. Consistent with a hot-cool distinction, ternary-relational processing emerged earlier and more 4- and 5-year-olds mastered ternary-relational items in hot than cool tasks. Overall performance was better in hot than cool tasks at 4 years but this pattern was reversed at 6 years.