The Impact Of Representation Patterns On Anchoring Effect In Duration Estimation

Anchoring effect (AE) refers to a phenomenon that arbitrary numbers (i.e.,the anchor) biases a subsequent numerical judgment.How the anchor represented in short-term memory? Is Anchoring effect a semantic priming or number priming phenomenon? Previous studies proposed that the initiation of AE was primarily dependent on the absolute value of the anchor and that of the numerical estimate,but not on their semantic information.However,a recent study showed a different result in the process of examining the anchoring effect in duration estimation.We are so intrigued by the discrepancies in the work of both that we conducted four experiments in three phase to examine how the anchor represented in short-term memory and whether the question representation would affect anchoring effect in duration estimation.In the first phase,two experiments were presented that examined the effect of representation patterns in different research paradigm.The result showed that (1) there was a significant difference in the semantic equivalence of two anchors with different absolute value (i.e.,1 minute,60 seconds) in any research paradigm,and that the anchor with a larger absolute value induced a greater numerical estimate than did the anchor with a smaller absolute value;(2) Two anchors with the same absolute values (i.e.,1 minute,1 seconds) induced the same degrees of AE despite their semantic Inconsistency.In the second phase,another experiment was presented to investigate anchoring effect in duration estimation in auditory modality.The result showed that in auditory modality there was also an anchoring effect in the duration estimation,and the time anchor’s representation patterns do influence the duration estimations.In the third phase,we inspected that whether the question’s representation patterns would affect the duration estimation on anchoring effect.The results showed that (1) the duration estimate based on the large question unit was greater than on the small question unit;(2) The anchoring deviation under large unit problem description was significantly larger than that under small unit problem.To summary,(1) no matter in any anchoring paradigm,AE is primarily dependent on the absolute value of the anchor but not on the semantics of the anchor.An anchor stored in STM is superficially represented as absolute value plus affix.(2) In auditory modality there is also anchoring effect in the duration estimation,and the time anchor’s representation patterns do influence the duration estimations.(3) The question’s representation patterns would affect the duration estimation on anchoring effect.