No description available.

Study of the impact of early visual deprivation and its following experience with numbers and numerosities on the elaboration of the semantic numerical representation with the same properties to those postulated in sighted people.

Study of the impact of early visual deprivation and its following experience with numbers and numerosities on the elaboration of the semantic numerical representation with the same properties to those postulated in sighted people.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Anchoring and Adjustment is a ubiquitous heuristic process in judgment and decision making. Although there is clear evidence that the anchor biases final estimates, there is disagreement about the process individuals use to arrive at the final estimate. The competing works observe the final estimates of the individuals under different conditions to find support for one or the other theory. I posit that the best way to study the mechanism in which the response is influenced is to observe the process by which participants come to the final response. In this vein, my work provides methodologies to surreptitiously observe individuals selecting the final response. My observations step towards providing a more nuanced process underlying the anchoring phenomenon. I posit that process of selecting a response by the individuals after getting influenced by the anchor is like searching for a response in the number space. I further propose that this search will be biased in systematic ways. First bias is due to the individuals’ tendency to search for a response more intensively in ‘the adjacent possible’ or the areas of search nearby the current area they are searching. I show that the search for the response is thus, dominated by adjustments to adjacent possible responses indicating a search process constrained by selective accessibility. This search will require adjustment but will be impacted by selective accessibility of the information rendered accessible by the initial anchor. Second bias is due the characteristics of the numerical search space itself. I suggest that the mental representation of numbers, just like mental representation of physical space, will have landmarks. I call them numerical landmarks. I propose that the presence of these numerical landmarks influences the individuals’ search of a response after they are influenced by an anchor. Essentially, I want to show that numerical anchors will share the characteristics of the mental representation of physical landmarks and will bias the search of an answer in the numerical space. With the help of five studies I propose to show the impact of numerical anchors on anchoring and adjustment bias and show that 1) Numerical landmarks, when presented on a scale, will grab more attention, 2) numerical landmarks are perceived to be bigger and more distinct than they actually are, and, 3) numerical landmarks act as decision nodes. Additionally, the use of relatively low-order-cognition anchoring contexts (e.g., perceptual anchoring) adds to the literature by demonstrating anchoring and adjustment bias in non-numeric domains.

This thesis reports work relating to theoretical frameworks in the area of numerical cognition that have been developed by McCloskey, Caramazza & Basili (1985), Clark & Campbell (1991), Dehaene (1992) and Noel & Seron (1992). The associations between numerical cognition and memory processes in relation to the working memory model of Baddeley (1986) were investigated. The first study used the factor analytic method to elucidate the factor structure of the processes that underlie numerical cognition, and to investigate the various components of the working memory model in relation to arithmetic. A battery of 21 tests was administered to 100 participants. The contribution of the factor analytic study to the structure of numerical cognition is discussed. An examination of the factors (labelled 'access to representations' and 'working memory') identified specific aspects of numerical cognition that were investigated further using experimental methods. The data on magnitude comparisons of numbers and animals that have been found to load onto Factor 1 were reanalysed. Similar patterns were found with the two types of stimuli in some cases. This suggested that Dehaene's notion of a 'number line' might not be specific to numbers. To build on the investigation of magnitude comparisons two experiments were carried out using the dual task paradigm. The results confirmed that magnitude judgements are represented at the level of semantic processing and may not be specific to numbers. The subitizing circles test was also found to load onto Factor 1. This raised a question about the common processes that may be involved both in this test and in other tests loading on that factor. A dual task experiment was used to investigate that possibility. It appeared from the results that the verbally presented tasks in the control and experimental groups produced interference with the s ubitizing task. This result lent support for the view that subitizing is an early pre-lexical perceptual process, possibly based on canonical representations ofthe stimuli. Complex addition and multiplication loaded onto Factor 2, 'working memory' and a further dual task experiment was conducted to investigate the speCUlative view held by Aschraft (1995), that the visuo-spatial sketchpad may playa role in arithmetic problem solving. The results lent support for the view held by Aschraft (1995) of the involvement of the visual-spatial component of working memory in the calculation of multi-digit addition problems. Thus the research reported in this thesis has used a range of investigative techniques and data analysis, with the aim of clarifying the scope and the limitations of major recent models of numerical cognition and the role of working memory in numerical processing. The results of the research programme supported those models which link numerical cognition with other forms of mental processing by identifying specific ways in which diverse numerical processes such as magnitude comparison, subitizing and the calculation of multi-digit problems draw on forms of processing associated with other types of stimuli.

Consumers are constantly evaluating quantitative information, such as the prices of different products, the time spent on an activity, or the distance covered during one day. Substantial research in psychology has demonstrated that judgments of quantity in one dimension (e.g., numbers) influence subsequent judgments on another dimension (e.g., time). The present research contributes to a growing body of work by exploring how the shared representation of time, space, and numbers affects consumer perceptions and behaviors. My first dissertation essay explores how the organization of time on a spatial plane affects temporal judgments, product evaluations, and intertemporal discounting (i.e., time-space interaction). It has been well documented that Western consumers typically arrange temporal sequences following a past-left, future-right spatial pattern. Merging insights gained from numerical cognition and time psychology, the author develops a framework to explain how displaying temporal sequences congruently with this spatial organization of time increases subjective estimations of time and biases consumers toward present rewards. My second dissertation essay seeks to understand how and why expressing quantitative information in symbolic code (i.e., “6”) compared to verbal code (i.e., “six”) affects magnitude judgments and product evaluations (i.e., time-number interaction). Two rival accounts to explain the symbol-verbal effect are described and tested: (1) a systematic processing account based on Arabic symbols’ perceptual and cognitive features and (2) a fluency account based on the frequency of use and facilitation of processing Arabic symbols. This research has important managerial implications related to the effective communication of quantitative information.

No description available.