Abstract
The study investigated potential effects of the presentation order of numeric information on retrospective subjective judgments of descriptive statistics of this information. The studies were theoretically motivated by the assumption in the naïve sampling model of independence between temporal encoding order of data in long-term memory and retrieval probability (i.e. as implied by a ”random sampling” from memory metaphor). In Experiment 1, participants experienced Arabic numbers that varied in distribution shape/variability between the first and the second half of the information sequence. Results showed no effects of order on judgments of mean, variability or distribution shape. To strengthen the interpretation of these results, Experiment 2 used a repeated judgment procedure, with an initial judgment occurring prior to the change in distribution shape of the information half-way through data presentation. The results of Experiment 2 were in line with those from Experiment 1, and in addition showed that the act of making explicit judgments did not impair accuracy of later judgments, as would be suggested by an anchoring and insufficient adjustment strategy. Overall, the results indicated that participants were very responsive to the properties of the data while at the same time being more or less immune to order effects. The results were interpreted as being in line with the naïve sampling models in which values are stored as exemplars and sampled randomly from long-term memory.
Highlights
People often make intuitive statistical judgments from previously experienced data with little or no information about the upcoming judgment before any data is presented
A recent framework for intuitive statistical judgments has suggested that people approach such judgments as naıve intuitive statisticians [1,2,3,4,5] and that the generic cognitive process they engage in could be described by the naıve sampling model (NSM) [4]
The aim of the present study is to examine if corresponding order effects exist for judgments of descriptive statistics of numeric information presented sequentially, or whether these are consistent with judgments of an intuitive statistician who stores, and has access to, all encountered data
Summary
People often make intuitive statistical judgments from previously experienced data with little or no information about the upcoming judgment before any data is presented. A recent framework for intuitive statistical judgments has suggested that people approach such judgments as naıve intuitive statisticians [1,2,3,4,5] and that the generic cognitive process they engage in could be described by the naıve sampling model (NSM) [4]. The NSM suggests that judgments of statistical properties are computed on small samples of observations retrieved form memory at the time of judgment [1,4], a strategy that resembles lazy algorithms [1,5] Few studies have addressed the extent to which people enter laboratory tasks with assumptions about properties of the data
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