In the Eye of the Beholder: Affect as well as Object Properties Impact Measurement Estimations

e probability of perceiving two objects as being similar is a negative exponential function of the distance between them in an internal psychological space (Shepard 1987). Our experimental studies showed that this distance and hence the similarity between objects in the same category is modulated by their size, frequency, and manipulability. Our experimental work also revealed that object properties evoked by digit-word expressions modulate numerosity estimations such that “8 elephants” were judged to be more numerous than “8 ants”, for instance. ese ndings extend the literature on human perceptual biases (Binet 1890) by showing that words instantly access rich mental representations. Our latest experimental ndings established that various emotional states
signi cantly impact measurement estimations.