Balakrishnan J D, Ashby F G
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208.
Psychol Res. 1992;54(2):80-90. doi: 10.1007/BF00937136.
It is widely believed that humans are endowed with a specialized numerical process, called subitizing, which enables them to apprehend rapidly and accurately the numerosity of small sets of objects. A major part of the evidence for this process is a purported discontinuity in the mean response time (RT) versus numerosity curves at about 4 elements, when subjects enumerate up to 7 or more elements in a visual display. In this article, RT data collected in a speeded enumeration experiment are subjected to a variety of statistical analyses, including several tests on the RT distributions. None of these tests reveals a significant discontinuity as numerosity increases. The data do suggest a strong stochastic dominance in RT by display numerosity, indicating that the mental effort required to enumerate does increase with each additional element in the display, both within and beyond the putative subitizing range.
人们普遍认为，人类具有一种特殊的数字处理能力，称为快速识数，它使人类能够快速准确地理解少量物体的数量。这一过程的主要证据之一是，当受试者在视觉显示中枚举多达7个或更多元素时，平均反应时间（RT）与数量曲线在大约4个元素处据称存在不连续性。在本文中，对快速枚举实验中收集的RT数据进行了各种统计分析，包括对RT分布的几项测试。随着数量的增加，这些测试均未显示出显著的不连续性。数据确实表明，显示数量在RT中具有很强的随机优势，这表明枚举所需的心理努力确实会随着显示中每增加一个元素而增加，无论是在假定的快速识数范围内还是之外。
