An Investigation of the Confusability of a New, Non-Circular Coin

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Abstract
Two experiments are reported in each of which subjects were shown photographs of assorted coins and were asked to count the number of coins of a specified denomination. Experiment 1, using only decimal coins, showed that people made few errors when counting new, 7-sided coins (50p), but many errors when counting circular coins (50p) having the same diameter as the new coin. Experiment 2 showed: (a)errors when counting (10p) coins were fewer in an assortment of £sd coins than when among decimal coins-with in the £sd coinage no other coin had the same diameter as l0p; (b) the l0p error rate could be reduced by enlarging the diameter of the 50p coin. These results suggest that the new 7-sided coin was not itself difficult to discriminate when it was tho search objective, but that it was sometimes mistakenly classified as the circular l0p when people were searching for lOp coins. To explain this asymetric confusability between the circular and non-circular coins, it is suggested that people vary tho salient dimensions used when searching for different coins-using predominantly shape for a non-circular coin, and predominantly size for a circular coin.

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