TY - JOUR A1 - Shaki, Samuel A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Competing Biases in Mental Arithmetic BT - When Division Is More and Multiplication Is Less JF - Frontiers in human neuroscience N2 - Mental arithmetic exhibits various biases. Among those is a tendency to overestimate addition and to underestimate subtraction outcomes. Does such “operational momentum” (OM) also affect multiplication and division? Twenty-six adults produced lines whose lengths corresponded to the correct outcomes of multiplication and division problems shown in symbolic format. We found a reliable tendency to over-estimate division outcomes, i.e., reverse OM. We suggest that anchoring on the first operand (a tendency to use this number as a reference for further quantitative reasoning) contributes to cognitive biases in mental arithmetic. KW - heuristics and biases KW - numerical cognition KW - mental arithmetic KW - mental number line KW - operational momentum Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00037 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pinhas, Michal A1 - Shaki, Samuel A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Addition goes where the big numbers are: evidence for a reversed operational momentum effect JF - Psychonomic bulletin & review : a journal of the Psychonomic Society N2 - Number processing evokes spatial biases, both when dealing with single digits and in more complex mental calculations. Here we investigated whether these two biases have a common origin, by examining their flexibility. Participants pointed to the locations of arithmetic results on a visually presented line with an inverted, right-to-left number arrangement. We found directionally opposite spatial biases for mental arithmetic and for a parity task administered both before and after the arithmetic task. We discuss implications of this dissociation in our results for the task-dependent cognitive representation of numbers. KW - Mental arithmetic KW - Mental number line KW - Operational momentum KW - Pointing KW - SNARC Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0786-z SN - 1069-9384 SN - 1531-5320 VL - 22 IS - 4 SP - 993 EP - 1000 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Winter, Bodo A1 - Felisatti, Arianna A1 - Myachykov, Andriy A1 - Jeglinski-Mende, Melinda A. A1 - Shaki, Samuel T1 - More Instructions Make Fewer Subtractions JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Research on problem solving offers insights into how humans process task-related information and which strategies they use (Newell and Simon, 1972; Öllinger et al., 2014). Problem solving can be defined as the search for possible changes in one's mind (Kahneman, 2003). In a recent study, Adams et al. (2021) assessed whether the predominant problem solving strategy when making changes involves adding or subtracting elements. In order to do this, they used several examples of simple problems, such as editing text or making visual patterns symmetrical, either in naturalistic settings or on-line. The essence of the authors' findings is a strong preference to add rather than subtract elements across a diverse range of problems, including the stabilizing of artifacts, creating symmetrical patterns, or editing texts. More specifically, they succeeded in demonstrating that “participants were less likely to identify advantageous subtractive changes when the task did not (vs. did) cue them to consider subtraction, when they had only one opportunity (vs. several) to recognize the shortcomings of an additive search strategy or when they were under a higher (vs. lower) cognitive load” (Adams et al., 2021, p. 258). Addition and subtraction are generally defined as de-contextualized mathematical operations using abstract symbols (Russell, 1903/1938). Nevertheless, understanding of both symbols and operations is informed by everyday activities, such as making or breaking objects (Lakoff and Núñez, 2000; Fischer and Shaki, 2018). The universal attribution of “addition bias” or “subtraction neglect” to problem solving activities is perhaps a convenient shorthand but it overlooks influential framing effects beyond those already acknowledged in the report and the accompanying commentary (Meyvis and Yoon, 2021). Most importantly, while Adams et al.'s study addresses an important issue, their very method of verbally instructing participants, together with lack of control over several known biases, might render their findings less than conclusive. Below, we discuss our concerns that emerged from the identified biases, namely those regarding the instructions and the experimental materials. Moreover, we refer to research from mathematical cognition that provides new insights into Adams et al.'s findings. KW - problem solving KW - addition KW - subtraction KW - cognitive bias KW - SNARC Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.720616 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 SP - 1 EP - 3 PB - Frontiers Media SA CY - Lausanne, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin H. A1 - Miklashevsky, Alex A. A1 - Shaki, Samuel T1 - Commentary : The Developmental Trajectory of the Operational Momentum Effect JF - Frontiers in Psychology KW - embodied cognition KW - operational momentum KW - SNARC effect KW - mental arithmetic KW - numerical cognition Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02259 SN - 1664-1078 N1 - A Commentary on The Developmental Trajectory of the Operational Momentum Effect by Pinheiro-Chagas, P., Didino, D., Haase, V. G., Wood, G., and Knops, A. (2018). Front. Psychol. 9:1062 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01062 VL - 9 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Felisatti, Arianna A1 - Laubrock, Jochen A1 - Shaki, Samuel A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Commentary BT - A mental number line in human newborns JF - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience KW - spatial-numerical associations KW - SNARC KW - mental number line (MNL) KW - spatial frequency (SF) KW - temporal frequency KW - hemispheric asymmetry KW - newborns KW - embodied cognition Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2020.00099 SN - 1662-5161 VL - 14 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER -