Competing heuristics and biases in mental arithmetic

• Applicant: Professor Martin Fischer
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 399243166

In contrast with the apparent ease of solving simple arithmetic problems such as “1+2”, a large number of recent studies have revealed heuristics and biases in mental arithmetic. The “operational momentum” (OM) effect refers to an apparent overshoot while moving along a hypothetical “mental number line” towards the results. The origin of OM is currently under debate. Three innovative series of experiments probe the relative contributions of heuristics and biases to OM. Parts A and B examine directional and non-directional features of OM to pinpoint interactions between spatial and quantitative cognition. Part C investigates the influence of different reading habits and notations of arithmetic problems to assess the generality of the proposed model across cultures. This project will clarify current research on the origin of OM, augment the recently proposed model by adding operand order and reading direction biases, and extend the well-established “heuristics and biases” approach to human thought into the domain of (apparently) rational mathematical cognition. It will also inform the teaching and rehabilitation of arithmetic skills by enabling better-graded task difficulty.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants