A curious fact about the communication of numerical information is that speakers often choose to use approximate or rounded expressions, even when more precise information is available (for instance, reporting the time as ‘three thirty’ when one’s watch reads 3:27). It has been proposed that this tendency towards rounding is driven by a desire to reduce hearers’ processing costs, a specific claim being that rounded values produce the same cognitive effect at less cognitive effort than non-round values (Van der Henst, Carles and Sperber, 2002). To date, however, the posited processing advantage for roundness has not been experimentally substantiated. Focusing on the domain of temporal expressions, we report on two experiments that demonstrate that rounded clock times are easier to remember and manipulate than their non-round counterparts, a finding that provides evidence for the influence of processing considerations on numerical expression choice. We further find a role for domain-specific granularity of measurement.

中文翻译：

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近似的偏好

关于数字信息交流的一个奇怪事实是，即使有更精确的信息，说话者也经常选择使用近似或四舍五入的表达方式（例如，当手表的读数为3:27时，报告时间为“三十三个”）。已经提出，这种舍入趋势是由降低听众处理成本的愿望所驱动的，具体主张是舍入值比非舍入值以更少的认知努力产生相同的认知效果（Van der Henst，Carles和Sperber ，2002）。然而，迄今为止，尚未通过实验证实圆度的假定加工优势。我们专注于时间表达式的领域，报告了两个实验，这些实验表明，舍入的时钟时间比非舍入的时钟更容易记住和操作，这一发现为处理注意事项对数值表达式选择的影响提供了证据。我们进一步发现了特定于域的度量粒度的作用。