Integrating verbal quantitative information in linear orderings

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Abstract
Human subjects learned and answered questions about 4-term linear orderings described in paragraphs of text. Spacing along the dimension employed was varied by using verbal quantifiers (just barely, moderately, and very much). After learning the quantitative information, performance on ordinal information varied as a function of the quantitative difference between terms in the ordering. Reaction time was faster for large quantitative differences than for small quantitative differences. Vague verbal quantitative information was integrated into the memory representation for an ordering, and such quantitative information apparently affected test performance.