The present study concerns redundant data problems, defined as problems
in which irrelevant data is provided. This type of problem provides a
misleading context [Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). Organismic process for
neo-Piagetian theories: A dialectical causal account of cognitive
development. International Journal of Psychology, 22, 531-570] similar
to the Piagetian class inclusion task. The two experiments performed
showed that adding the a-pragmatic cue 'in total' to the final question
of redundant data problems increased both 7- and 9-year-old children's
failure rate, without modifying the structure of the problem. This
indicates that a non-structural linguistic cue can bias children towards
failure by enhancing the lack of inhibition of the ordinary adding
schema. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.