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Competing Biases in Mental Arithmetic: When Division Is More and Multiplication Is Less
Samuel Shaki1, Martin H Fischer2
1Department of Behavioral Sciences, Ariel University Ariel, Israel.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|February 17, 2017
Summary
Cognitive biases in mental arithmetic, like operational momentum (OM), were explored. The study found that adults tend to overestimate division outcomes, a reverse OM effect, possibly due to anchoring on the first number.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Mathematical Cognition
- Human Reasoning
Background:
- Mental arithmetic is prone to systematic biases.
- Operational momentum (OM) describes overestimating addition and underestimating subtraction.
- The influence of OM on multiplication and division remains underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether operational momentum (OM) affects multiplication and division.
- To identify cognitive biases in the mental calculation of multiplication and division outcomes.
- To explore the role of anchoring in these arithmetic biases.
Main Methods:
- Twenty-six adult participants were tested.
- Participants generated line lengths proportional to multiplication and division problem solutions.
- Problems were presented in a symbolic format.
Main Results:
- A significant tendency to overestimate division outcomes was observed.
- This overestimation in division represents a reverse operational momentum (OM).
- No significant bias was found for multiplication outcomes (though not explicitly stated, implied by focus on division).
Conclusions:
- Operational momentum (OM) does not uniformly affect all arithmetic operations.
- Cognitive biases, such as reverse OM in division, can occur.
- Anchoring on the first operand may contribute to these cognitive biases in mental arithmetic.
Keywords:
heuristics and biasesmental arithmeticmental number linenumerical cognitionoperational momentumMore Related Videos
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