The context in which the questions were asked was major importance. If asked in a casual, relaxed setting to come up with a tool, a person might reflect for a second or two before answering....greatly increasing the chance that they'd name something besides a hammer.
But if you phrase the question like "answer as quickly as you can!", invariably, the most common or easily spoken objects will be the most popular. A much more interesting exercise that my friend and I undertook in grade school: show a person the numbers 1 through 4 on a sheet of paper, and ask them to pick one of the numbers. Simple statistics tells you each number should be chosen about 25% of the time. We found that a person chose the number "3" nearly 90% of the time. On 7/11/06, Vivec <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It has to do with the society in which you live. > > This test is for westernised , english speaking societies. > > Ask a group of people to name a color when in a relaxed state and > perhaps the first color that comes to mind is Red. > > Ask them to name a tool and perhaps the first tool to come to mind is > Hammer. > > Ask a child, ask an adult, you might get the same results. I would > think Red and Blue would come up the most often. > > On 7/11/06, Nick McClure <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It has to do with probabilities, and in my opinion made up statistics. > > > > I don't believe that 98% of the people will always answer red hammer. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/message.cfm/forumid:5/messageid:210935 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
