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Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research 3/2016

09-11-2015 | Original Article

Tracking practice effects in computation estimation

Auteurs: Dana Ganor-Stern, Nilly Weiss

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 3/2016

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Abstract

The present study investigated college students’ ability to estimate the results of multi-digit multiplication problems and the extent to which this ability improves with practice. Participants judged whether the results of multiplication problems composed of two-digit numbers were larger or smaller than a given reference number. The reference numbers were either close or far from the exact answer. The effects of practice, size, and distance of the reference number from the exact answer were examined using four measures of performance: speed, accuracy, eye movements, and strategy use. The results show that together with enhanced speed and accuracy with practice, participants also changed the pattern of eye movements and the strategies they used. The eye movement analysis showed longer dwell time and more frequent first fixations toward the reference number with practice, suggesting that participants relied more on the reference number to solve the task with practice. The strategy analysis revealed that with practice participants reduced their use of the approximate calculation strategy, which involves multiplying the rounded operands and comparing the product to the reference number, and increased their reliance on the sense of magnitude strategy which does not involve any calculation, but is grounded in the ANS. This was done especially for trials in which the reference number was far from the exact answer, thus exhibiting enhanced adaptivity in strategy choice with practice.
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Metagegevens
Titel
Tracking practice effects in computation estimation
Auteurs
Dana Ganor-Stern
Nilly Weiss
Publicatiedatum
09-11-2015
Uitgeverij
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Gepubliceerd in
Psychological Research / Uitgave 3/2016
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0720-7

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