The effects of meaningfulness of the stimulus materials and the presence or absence of contextual cues on problem-solving behavior were investigated. Third-graders (N=80) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and their performance in a series of discrimination problems was observed. Subjects in Conditions I and II responded to stimuli composed of abstract dimensions such as letter, color, size, and line position. Subjects in Conditions III and IV responded to more concrete (meaningful) dimensions such as cheese, carrot, camel, and crow. Contextually, Conditions II and IV differed from I and III in that subjects received contextual cues (stories) about the stimuli. In Condition II, the stories conveyed information about the dimensional properties of the stimuli (i.e., letter, size, color, line position), while in Condition IV the stories related to the objects in the pictures. In general, results indicated that the best performance on several dependent measures was obtained when children were presented meaningful stimuli and received a story (contextual cue) about the stimuli (Condition IV). These children solved more problems, manifested more consistent hypotheses during probes, were more likely to retain a hypothesis following positive feedback, and were more likely to abandon a hypothesis following a negative feedback than were subjects in any other condition. (Author)