Faculty Sponsor: Hilary Barth
Cameron Bourassa
Cameron is a rising junior from Massachusetts who is majoring in Neuroscience & Behavior and Psychology. They are a research assistant in Wesleyan’s Cognitive Development Lab and an assistant manager at KidCity Children’s Museum. They are also a member of the women’s rugby team at Wesleyan.
Abstract: In a “number line estimation task,” people are given a target numeral and estimate where it should go on a response line. Both children and adults place target numerals on either side of a hundred’s boundary significantly farther apart than they should be placed (e.g., 398 is placed too far to the left of 402). This is known as the “Left Digit Effect,” or left digit bias. This effect is important to understand as number line estimation tasks are commonly used to learn about how children and adults think about numbers, and it can prevent incorrect conclusions from being drawn. Also, this bias is used to affect decision making in many aspects of every day life (e.g., a product in store priced $6.99 as opposed to $7.00). Though the left-digit effect has been found to be present in computer-based formats for children and in computer-based and paper-based number line estimation tasks for adults, the direct comparison of the two task versions has not yet been examined. Therefore, we asked if the number line placements were overly influenced by hundreds digits on each task, and if so, whether this left digit bias differed across task format. Through a standard 0-1000 number line estimation task performed by children aged 9-12 and adults on both paper and computer, we found strong left digit effects for children and adults on both task formats and a larger left digit effect on the paper-based task for children only.
QAC_NLPC_Poster