No effect of variety on perceived quantity: Evidence from six studies

Abstract

Redden and Hoch (2009) found that variety in a set of items robustly decreased the perceived quantity of the sum of these items across multiple studies. For example, a set of multicolored M&M’s was estimated to contain fewer M&M’s than an equally large set of single-colored M&M’s (e.g., Redden & Hoch, 2009, Study 3). We conducted six close replication studies of the studies reported by Redden and Hoch and did not find this effect in any of them. A meta-analysis of the four original studies and 6 replication studies (N = 1,383) revealed no evidence for the phenomenon that variety reduces perceived quantity.