Testing QuickEst: No evidence for the Quick-Estimation heuristic |
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| Authors: | Daniel Hausmann Damian Läge Rüdiger F Pohl Arndt Bröder |
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| Institution: | 1. General Psychology (Cognition) , University of Zurich , Zurich, Switzerland d.hausmann@psychologie.unizh.ch;3. Applied Cognitive Psychology , University of Zurich , Zurich, Switzerland;4. Department of Psychology , University of Mannheim , Mannheim, Germany;5. Max-Planck-Institute for Research on Collective Goods , Bonn, Germany |
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| Abstract: | The Quick-Estimation heuristic (QuickEst) was introduced by Hertwig, Hoffrage, and Martignon (1999
Hertwig , R. ,
Hoffrage , U. , &
Martignon , L. (1999) . Quick estimation: Letting the environment do the work . In G. Gigerenzer , P. M. Todd , & the ABC Research Group (Eds.) , Simple heuristics that make us smart (pp. 209 – 234) . New York : Oxford University Press . Google Scholar]) as a fast and frugal method to generate numerical estimates. The heuristic posits that estimate-relevant knowledge is organised and searched according to ordered reference classes that are based on binary cue values. Two experiments tested two main predictions derived from QuickEst with respect to the memory search and estimation behaviour of human participants. The results provided no evidence that QuickEst is used in numerical estimation processes. As alternative explanation of our findings, we discuss a cyclic sampling mechanism that retrieves information from memory according to their associative strength. |
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