Cordes Sara, Goldstein Alison, Heller Elizabeth
Department of Psychology, Boston College.
J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2014 Feb;40(1):94-105. doi: 10.1037/a0034131. Epub 2013 Aug 26.
Navigating the world requires attention to number; however, sets in real-world contexts are rarely homogeneous or presented in isolation, thus the task of determining what constitutes a relevant set for enumeration can be a difficult one. This contextual ambiguity increases the likelihood that irrelevant sets may bias our ability to accurately track number. In the current study, we investigated whether numerical estimates are influenced by irrelevant set information, such as the size of other present subsets or the number of subsets composing the set. Adult observers were shown brief arrays of dots containing 1 or 2 intermixed subsets, differentiated by color, and were asked to estimate the number of either: (1) 1 of the subsets or (2) the superset (total number of dots). When estimating the size of a subset, numerical estimates were greatly influenced by the size of the other, irrelevant subset, suggesting that the presence of extraneous sets may hinder accurate number judgments. Furthermore, when asked to judge the total number of items (the superset), observers judged supersets comprising 2 subsets as more numerous compared to those comprising only a single subset. Importantly, both trends were apparent even when observers had prior information about the identity of the target set, suggesting adults preattentively parse the world into sets, causing numerical biases that are not under conscious control. Potential explanations for this pattern of results, including simultaneous numerical contrast effects and superset summation, are discussed.
在现实世界中活动需要关注数量；然而，现实世界背景下的集合很少是同质的或孤立呈现的，因此确定什么构成一个相关的用于计数的集合可能是一项困难的任务。这种背景的模糊性增加了无关集合可能会影响我们准确追踪数量能力的可能性。在当前的研究中，我们调查了数值估计是否会受到无关集合信息的影响，比如其他现有子集的大小或构成该集合的子集数量。向成年观察者展示包含1个或2个由颜色区分的混合子集的简短点阵，并要求他们估计以下两者之一的数量：(1) 其中一个子集或(2) 超集（点的总数）。当估计一个子集的大小时，数值估计会受到另一个无关子集大小的极大影响，这表明无关集合的存在可能会阻碍准确的数量判断。此外，当被要求判断项目的总数（超集）时，观察者判断由2个子集组成的超集比仅由单个子集组成的超集数量更多。重要的是，即使观察者事先知道目标集合的身份，这两种趋势仍然明显，这表明成年人会在注意力之前就将世界解析为集合，从而产生不受意识控制的数值偏差。我们讨论了这种结果模式的潜在解释，包括同时性数值对比效应和超集求和。
