Is 7300 m Equal to 7.3 km? Same Semantics but Different Anchoring Effects

Anchoring effect (AE) refers to a phenomenon that an arbitrary number (i.e., the anchor) biases a subsequent numerical judgment. Three experiments were conducted to examine how the anchor is represented in short-term memory. Experiment 1 showed that despite the semantic equivalence of two anchors, the anchor with a larger absolute value (i.e., 7300 m) induced a greater numerical estimate than did the anchor with a smaller absolute value (i.e.,...