Studia Psychologica
Author:
Keywords:
perseveration effect, strategy choice, Numerosity Judgement Task, Social Sciences, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Psychology, NUMEROSITY JUDGMENT, OLDER, MODEL, 1701 Psychology, 1702 Cognitive Sciences, Social Psychology, 5201 Applied and developmental psychology, 5203 Clinical and health psychology, 5205 Social and personality psychology
Abstract:
The present study provides additional evidence for the recently described perseveration effect (i.e., participants repeat the previous strategy more often than switch to another strategy). The participants' task was to determine the number of colored cells in grids by using two possible strategies: an addition strategy (whereby participants add the colored cells) or a subtraction strategy (whereby they subtract the number of empty cells from the total grid size). We used a paradigm in which the different numerosities were presented in three different orders: an ascending order, which started with low-numerosity items (which are known to be solved with the addition strategy) and gradually increased to high-numerosity items (which are known to be solved with the subtraction strategy), a descending order (with the reverse order) and a random order. The hypothesis that participants' change point (i.e., the numerosity on which they switch from one strategy to the other) would be the largest in the ascending order and smallest in the descending order, is confirmed).