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Mental Representations of Weekdays

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  • David A Ellis
  • Richard Wiseman
  • Rob Jenkins

Abstract

Keeping social appointments involves keeping track of what day it is. In practice, mismatches between apparent day and actual day are common. For example, a person might think the current day is Wednesday when in fact it is Thursday. Here we show that such mismatches are highly systematic, and can be traced to specific properties of their mental representations. In Study 1, mismatches between apparent day and actual day occurred more frequently on midweek days (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) than on other days, and were mainly due to intrusions from immediately neighboring days. In Study 2, reaction times to report the current day were fastest on Monday and Friday, and slowest midweek. In Study 3, participants generated fewer semantic associations for “Tuesday”, “Wednesday” and “Thursday” than for other weekday names. Similarly, Google searches found fewer occurrences of midweek days in webpages and books. Analysis of affective norms revealed that participants’ associations were strongly negative for Monday, strongly positive for Friday, and graded over the intervening days. Midweek days are confusable because their mental representations are sparse and similar. Mondays and Fridays are less confusable because their mental representations are rich and distinctive, forming two extremes along a continuum of change.

Suggested Citation

  • David A Ellis & Richard Wiseman & Rob Jenkins, 2015. "Mental Representations of Weekdays," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(8), pages 1-17, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0134555
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0134555
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David A Ellis & Rob Jenkins, 2012. "Weekday Affects Attendance Rate for Medical Appointments: Large-Scale Data Analysis and Implications," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-4, December.
    2. Kamara, Avraham, 1997. "New Evidence on the Monday Seasonal in Stock Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(1), pages 63-84, January.
    3. Jaffe, Jeffrey F. & Westerfield, Randolph & Ma, Christopher, 1989. "A twist on the Monday effect in stock prices: Evidence from the U.S. and foreign stock markets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 641-650, September.
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    1. Jet G Sanders & Rob Jenkins, 2016. "Weekly Fluctuations in Risk Tolerance and Voting Behaviour," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-12, July.

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