The left digit effect in a complex judgment task

Evaluating hypothetical college applicants

Bibliographic Data

ID12166493
AuthorsAndrea L Patalano (0000-0002-5829-7703, Department of Psychology Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut USA, corresponding author), Katherine Williams (0009-0008-9856-1717), Katherine Steele (0000-0001-8963-7574, Department of Psychology Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut USA), Gillian Weeks (0009-0003-5104-8442, Department of Psychology Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut USA), Kelsey Kayton (0000-0003-3286-7883, Department of Psychology Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut USA), Hilary Barth (0000-0003-2937-2716, Department of Psychology Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut USA)
Year2021
Volume35
Issue1
Publication date2021-03-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Behavioral Decision Making (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0894-3257 • E-ISSN: 1099-0771
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/bdm.2247
OpenAlexW3140154095
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited55

A left digit effect has been broadly observed across judgment and decision‐making contexts ranging from product evaluation to medical treatment decisions to number line estimation. For example, $3.00 is judged to be a much greater cost than $2.99, and “801” is estimated strikingly too far to the right of “798” on a number line. Although the consequences of the effects for judgment and decision behavior have been documented, the sources of the effects are not well established. The goal of the current work is to extend investigations of the left digit effect to a new complex judgment activity and to assess whether the magnitude of the effect at the individual level can be predicted from performance on a simpler number skills task on which the left digit effect has also recently been observed. In three experiments ( N = 434), adults completed a judgment task in which they rated the strength of hypothetical applicants for college admission and a self‐paced number line estimation task. In all experiments, a small or medium left digit effect was found in the college admissions task, and a large effect was found in number line estimation. Individual‐level variation was observed, but there was no relationship between the magnitudes of the effects in the two tasks. These findings provide evidence of a left digit effect in a novel multiattribute judgment task but offer no evidence that such performance can be predicted from a simple number skills task such as number line estimation

Arithmetic · Cognitive psychology · Economics · Estimation · Mathematics education · Number line · Numerical digit · Statistics · Task (project management · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Financial Markets and Investment Strategies · Mathematics · Psychology · Social Psychology

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