| Abstract: | In three studies we demonstrated that adults as well as children provide nonconservation-of-weight responses to misdirecting questions. The effect was constant over the types of problems studied, did not vary over the grade range tested (third graders through college students), and was resistant to a condition that had earlier proved successful in breaking a set to respond to misleading implications of questions. The results underscore the importance of linguistic pragmatics, conflicts with recent claims that among adults there is a certainty about and a belief in the necessity of certain types of Piagetian logic, and support earlier findings suggesting that contextual cues can alter responses to conservation questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
