The Human Organism as a Random Mechanism

Subjective patterns of randomness and choice: Some consequences of collective responses.

“…Preference for the internal part of the given frame at the expense of the margins (barring the corners in some cases) is shared by the responses to all the conditions in Experiments 1 and 2 (Figures 3 and 6) and by many other investigations (Attali & Bar-Hillel, 2003;Dudley, 1982;Kareev & Rania, 2001;Lacey, 1962;Nickerson, 2005;Rubinstein et al, 1997;Teigen, 1983). Henze and Riedwyl (1998, Figure 4.3) present the above mentioned two winning sextets in the British National Lottery of 1995 as they were visually arranged in the lottery ticket in a rectangle of 5 ϫ 10 (without the bottom-right corner cell).…”

“…We hypothesize that the relation between the difficulty of memorizing a pattern -which is the subjective counterpart of its objective complexity (Kolmogorov, 1965) -and the judged randomness of that pattern will be positive. 6) and by many other investigations (Attali & BarHillel, 2003;Dudley, 1982;Kareev & Rania, 2001;Lacey, 1962;Nickerson, 2005;Rubinstein et al, 1997;Teigen, 1983). Henze and Riedwyl (1998, Figure 4 Insert Table 14 about here.…”

“…Attali and Bar-Hillel (2003) and Bar-Hillel and Attali (2002) took that lead and explored the role of answer position in multiple-choice tests. They found systematic position effects of avoiding the edges and balancing the answer keys in the behavior of both test makers and test takers (as in Dudley, 1982; Falk, 1975; Kareev & Rania, 2001; Lacey, 1962; Lisanby & Lockhead, 1991; Ross & Weiner, 1963). These effects were large enough to have real psychometric consequences.…”

“…The same tendency was evident when participants had to guess numbers in a given range (Teigen, 1983). Lacey (1962) and Nickerson (2005) asked participants to draw random chords within a circle. They found that the chosen chords were, on average, longer than those which several legitimate random processes would produce.…”