Mioni Giovanna, Fischer Martin H, Shaki Samuel
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2021 Mar;74(3):536-547. doi: 10.1177/1747021820967663. Epub 2020 Nov 11.
There is a debate about whether and why we overestimate addition and underestimate subtraction results (Operational Momentum or OM effect). Spatial-attentional accounts of OM compete with a model which postulates that OM reflects a weighted combination of multiple arithmetic heuristics and biases (AHAB). This study addressed this debate with the theoretically diagnostic distinction between zero problems (e.g., 3 + 0, 3 - 0) and non-zero problems (e.g., 2 + 1, 4 - 1) because AHAB, in contrast to all other accounts, uniquely predicts reverse OM for the latter problem type. In two tests (line-length production and time production), participants indeed produced shorter lines and under-estimated time intervals in non-zero additions compared with subtractions. This predicted interaction between operation and problem type extends OM to non-spatial magnitudes and highlights the strength of AHAB regarding different problem types and modalities during the mental manipulation of magnitudes. They also suggest that OM reflects methodological details, whereas reverse OM is the more representative behavioural signature of mental arithmetic.
关于我们是否以及为何高估加法结果并低估减法结果（操作动量或OM效应）存在一场争论。OM的空间注意力解释与一种假设OM反映多种算术启发式和偏差（AHAB）的加权组合的模型相互竞争。本研究通过零问题（例如3 + 0、3 - 0）和非零问题（例如2 + 1、4 - 1）之间在理论上具有诊断性的区别来解决这场争论，因为与所有其他解释不同，AHAB独特地预测了后一种问题类型的反向OM。在两项测试（线长生成和时间生成）中，与减法相比，参与者在非零加法中确实生成了更短的线并低估了时间间隔。这种操作与问题类型之间预测的相互作用将OM扩展到非空间量值，并突出了AHAB在量值心理操作过程中针对不同问题类型和模态的优势。它们还表明OM反映了方法细节，而反向OM是心算更具代表性的行为特征。
