Competing Biases in Mental Arithmetic
- 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.
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| Author details: | Samuel ShakiORCiD, Martin H. FischerORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-103492 |
| Subtitle (English): | When Division Is More and Multiplication Is Less |
| Publication series (Volume number): | Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe (312) |
| Publication type: | Postprint |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2017/02/01 |
| Publication year: | 2017 |
| Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
| Release date: | 2017/02/22 |
| Tag: | heuristics and biases; mental arithmetic; mental number line; numerical cognition; operational momentum |
| Number of pages: | 5 |
| Source: | Front. Hum. Neurosci. (2017) Nr. 11:37. - DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00037 |
| Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften |
| DDC classification: | 6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Publishing method: | Open Access |
| License (German): |  CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |
| External remark: | Bibliographieeintrag der Originalveröffentlichung/Quelle |
