Comparing the Perceived Size of 9 with 221 and with 2143: Biasing Effects of Inferred Context in a Between-Subjects Design

Abstract

To investigate whether decision-making can be biased by context, different participants judged the size of different numbers that had been hypothesized to induce different contexts. To measure these contexts, the Juillet Measure of Inferred Context (JMIC) was proposed, validated and then employed to compare contexts invoked by the numbers. In Study 1, where 9 was rated as greater than 221 on a numerical scale but similar to 221 on a continuous line (McKelvie, 2001), JMIC scores were smaller for 9 than for 221 in both cases. However, the difference was reduced on the line compared to the numerical scale. In Study 2 (reported here), 9 was rated as similar in size to 2143 on both scales. However, from the JMIC scores, the context invoked by 9 was smaller than the context invoked by 2143 on both scales. The JMIC results show that between-subjects designs do not eliminate context effects. Moreover, in conjunction with the context size priming model of number judgment (proposed here), according to which (a) induced context is a positive function of the target number and (b) the numerical scale has a priming effect on this context, the JMIC results help to explain the anomalous findings that 9 was judged to be larger or similar to 221 (Study 1) and similar to 2143 (Study 2).

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