Discriminating Numbers Allows for Better Decisions
This chapter, “Discriminating Numbers Allows for Better Decisions,” focuses on the role of our intuitive sense of numbers in decision making. Humans have evolved beyond these intuitions about quantities to know modern numeric abstractions. However, the evolutionarily old approximate number system (ANS) nonetheless remains pivotal to human decisions. Just as non-human animals use the proportional reasoning and estimation skills that come from the ANS, so do humans. The chapter introduces three systematic properties of the ANS that can explain differences in how people make decisions. These numeric intuitions, independent of objective ability, relate to having superior numeric memory and (usually) more accurate perceptions of value. Sometimes, however, the ANS’s reliance on proportional reasoning can produce what looks like worse decisions. The Appendix to this chapter describes ANS measures.