The Effect of Letter versus Number Cues on Distance Perception
研究字母与数字两种线索如何影响消费者在任务前和任务后的距离感知，发现任务前字母线索导致更小距离感知，任务后则相反，并通过计算流畅性和期望不一致理论解释。
People experience the world through distance perceptions, such as perceiving distance when moving through store aisles, locating movie theater seats, spotting parking spaces, or navigating airport gates. The distance can be perceived using qualitative (e.g., letter) or quantitative (e.g., number) cues. In this research, we focus on how the type of cues can influence consumers’ distance perceptions and affect their everyday judgments. Specifically, we suggest that in pretask estimates (referred to as the preaction stage), letter cues lead to lesser distance perceptions. However, in posttask estimates (referred to as the postaction stage), letter cues lead to greater distance perceptions. We explain the result pattern in the preaction stage using naive beliefs about the ease of computation and magnitude judgments (i.e., computational fluency). In the postaction stage, we propose that expectation–disconfirmation causes such a reversal in distance perceptions. We test the proposed patterns of results and theoretical accounts across two laboratory studies and two field studies.