Pick a number from 1 to 10

Pick a number, then read, please.

The goal at first was to just see what numbers people gravitate toward. I've heard lots of conjecture about how people pick 7 or 3 or 4 more than others, and for a variety of reasons, but had a hard time finding actual demonstration of this. Then, while implementing a choosing system, the problem became: how do you present the information so as not to bias it? This is why there are four different ways of picking. There are also a couple other metrics being measured, including a difference in phrasing (Pick a number… vs Pick a random number…) which may be interesting.

Apologies for any bugs or general wonkiness. The whole thing was a ~2 hour impulse project.

PS: The data will absolutely be shared! Just need time to do a breakdown of all the different permutations.

I was going to pick 4, but then realized that 4 has been my default "random" number, ever since http://xkcd.com/221/

I also chose 7. Human Random Distribution is probably not very random. I hope that he'll release the data.

An interesting extension of this could be to add a poll here on HN asking, "Which number did you pick?" and then comparing the poll results to the actual results.

Are you trying to estimate the bias depending on the type of selector used (slider, input, options, ...)?

Very interesting concept :)

EDIT, forgot to add: if this is the case, have you thought of storing the type of selector in a cookie, so that refreshing the page gives always the same type?

Did it twice before reading comments. 7 and than 3. Have no idea why. My wife just picked 7... Scary

There are faster ways to provide data for /dev/random...

Based on that interface I would predict...

middle number: for the graphical choices as it's common/easier to get a valid first click in the middle of the slider.

high number: for the key entry as if most people are right handed it's easier to get to the high numbers instead of going across the keyboard.

all that is predicated on the fact that people are lazy instead of random when using this.

It might be biasing it's results by having it set to one by default...

Excellent. Now give us the data!

I am interested in finding out how many people decided not to choose a number at all, and if that fact could help mitigate the experiment's inherent bias.

As for people making multiple entries into the experiment, a simple IP filter could help reduce overall error.

I think it would be neat to offer an option to not choose a number, but rather a number to help offset selector's bias (in participating in the number choosing experiment knowingly). It's similar to the multiple choosing UIs.

Nonetheless, I can only appreciate simple things like this that lead to a spirited and educated read.

Cheers and can't wait to see "final" results and accompanying analysis.

Interesting project. I'm looking forward to see the results. This reminds me some of the mental algorithms I was thinking about: How do you generate a random number without electronic devices? How do you generate a random permutation without electronic devices? How do you generate a hash without electronic devices? How do you do the above most efficiently? How about without any pen, pencil or paper?

It will be cool if you can master mental cryptography.

I posted a graph with the basic distribution on the results page (just hardcoded for the moment):

http://nfrom1to10.appspot.com/results/

A more in depth breakdown is coming. The number of responses has been far, far beyond what I expected — several orders of magnitude more. Once I get together a good way to efficiently track and display the graphs, I'll make them live.

Upon being shown a circle and asked to pick a random number, I thought for a bit and realized that no matter what I picked I wouldn't believe I had chosen it randomly. Then I wrote a one-line script to generate a random number from 1 to 10 and I put its output as my answer. Perhaps this defeated the purpose of the site, but I find it so hard to choose when I know my response is being measured.

Can't wait to hear how many people picked 10 (as I did). If it hadn't been for science, I would probably have picked 7 like everybody else.

Once I thought it would be good to play the numbers "1 2 3 4 5 6" in the lottery because they are as likely as other numbers, and I thought people would not pick them. Turns out lots of people play "1 2 3 4 5 6".

I was going to pick 7.1 until I found out that he was prepared for pedantry and restricted the set to natural numbers.

Here's another test: Ask the user to pick a number from 1 to 10 but randomize the order of the numbers each time.

Brilliant idea, but haven't you built in bias by unblinding the experiment? I followed the link, got one implementation and keyed in '5'. Then I read your write-up and realised that there are more implementations, reloaded the page and thought deeply about the number I would/should choose on the slider.

yesterday i was improving my excel skills about statistics, instead of use the random funcion i thought to ask a number from 1 to 10 to some friend and see the histogram. just after some question i was surprised about the results and so i asked more people. up to now i asked 24 people(46 number in total,the first 2 was just one question), i also asked a second number after recived the first. my result are: that 7 win with 31% of answer followed by 5 with 17% the last are 10 (zero answer), 1 with 1 answer and 2 and 6 with 2 answer each. you have to note that 83% say a odd number as a first one.noone told me a number that wasnt integer. whats going on? the majority of people was italian, some spanish and some german.Guido

After you've entered your unbiased data, make sure to refresh the page and see what else you could have been confronted with. You'll notice the different variables in the experiment - just make sure to do this after in order for it to not influence your decision.

Even if people have to pick a number from 1 to 20, 7 would be the second most chosen one.

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/02/is_17_the_mos...

I'd imagine 7 would be less popular or people that have previously heard of a bias towards 7, would be hard to have a test group though that has never heard anything at all about a bias. It's still the highest so far in this experiment though.

I would imagine that if you did this survey in a crowd of sports fans, you would get a different distribution based on town or player followed. Plus, if I remember right 7 and 4 and not terribly lucky numbers in China.

I picked 6 because it was closest to my cursor when the row of numbers popped up.

I'm curious to know if the typing prompt scores fewer 10's because of increased typing effort and if the hover-to-reveal circle gets more centrally-located numbers due to Fitt's law

I swiped the mouse quickly, ended up at 5, and managed to resist the temptation to change it to something "more random".

How many people leave it at 1? This is kinda neat.

Also, it was nice of science to thank me.

I picked 7, because that's what I expected other people to gravitate to, and I wanted to see if you had some fun response if I picked the most common alternative. :P

I chose 7 with slider preset at 1. Didn't want to leave it at 1 and throwing the slider "left" it there.

Referrer might be interesting information. Do geeks behave differently etc.

I picked 8 because I could not find a reason for picking 8.

I picked 6 purely because it's in the middle of my keyboard. I don't think "type a random number" is the same as "think of or say a random number"...

What is the point of the asterisk at the end of the request?

Oh, and something about the page with the circle on it prevents my browser from reloading.

I accidentally chose my number before I could do more than deliberate on whether to pick that number or go for another one.

There is an interesting observation. Try selecting a random number multiple times with page refresh. The ui keeps changing.

Hmm, might be interesting to see the results of numbers presented in a ring, equidistant from the cursor...

I was already aware that most people choose 7 in this situation so I selected my favorite number 8.

I'd like to see a heatmap for the website. I think you can do it with google analytics.

pleas deploy http://code.google.com/p/jquery-ui-for-ipad-and-iphone/ or something likt that to make the number by bar-thingie working in the ipad

Actually, I've heard a lot of people pick 2 or 7. Can you confirm if this is true?

Is this an actual app or is it just a trojan horse designed to collect our data?!

You shouldn't have it start on "1" -- you should make people have to slide it.

Thought of submitting this to mechanical turk in order to get a lot of data?

What is the point of this numerical experiment? (I"m serious)

Without something like facebook or twitter login, the system will be abused. There is no stopping someone who just reloads ( or even make an automated script heh ) and keeps on choosing, resulting in flawed data. Just saying.

It's all about the position of the mouse I would believe.

I had a favourite number, and I picked it. It was 4.

Reminds me of Benford's Law [1], which stipulates that in many lists of numbers from real-world data, the leading digit is 1 30% of the time, and larger digits occur as the leading digit with lower and lower frequency (logarithmically). This has been used to detect made-up numbers in accounting which later turned out to be fraudulent behaviour.

1: http://www.rexswain.com/benford.html

Its a cool idea but I would recommend A/B testing different GUI for picking numbers for removing some of the possible biases. I personally picked 7, most likely because the human eye moves from top left to bottom right so I scanned what the choices were then picked the number near where my eye last looked.

Also, I would love to see a heat map/click map of that page.

I did not understand what to do. I thought it was going to try to guess it. I didn't understand that the 1 was the answer I was giving. Sadly.

Of the different interfaces, the prompt in the circle looked the best, although the mysterious black circle was OK.

Pls add : 42