"Not quite the illustrative results I was hoping for, but that's what you happens when you run really tiny experimental groups, and don't do any pilot samples to pretest your theories about how people will actually react."

"The underlying theory, how it was supposed to work here, is that if you see the Osirian book of 30 items side-by-side with the Nexian book of 10 items, that makes the quantity of items salient, it makes the quantity mean something.  If you don't pick a very large quality difference, in a case like that, people usually go for the higher quantity."

"If on the other hand, I compare a Nexian book about 10 magic items, to an Absalom book of spell design, what does the number 10 really mean there?  It's not more or less than any obvious numbers about the spell design book.  So what you see instead is Nexian and Absalom, where Nex has a better magical reputation than Absalom, apparently, obviously I'm just going off Carissa here."

"Similarly if I compare the Osirian book of 30 items to the Absalom spell design book, the number 30 doesn't have some other number to compare to, so everybody goes for Absalom because they have a better magical reputation than Osirion... was what was supposed to happen, but didn't, either because we didn't run any pilot studies to see what usually worked on people, or because our groups were so tiny that randomness dominated."

"Buuut you at least got to see that the Osirian book looked a little less attractive, next to the Absalom spell design book, than the Nexian book looked next to the Absalom spell design book, even though if you put the Osirian and Nexian books side-by-side that one person went for the Osirian one with more items."

"If I could run more probes like this, I could probably find a slightly different version that reliably gave the result I was looking for if you run it on a group of 20 students."

"Not quite the illustrative results I was hoping for, but that's what you happens when you run really tiny experimental groups, and don't do any pilot samples to pretest your theories about how people will actually react."

"The underlying theory, how it was supposed to work here, is that if you see the Osirian book of 30 items side-by-side with the Nexian book of 10 items, that makes the quantity of items salient, it makes the quantity mean something.  If you don't pick a very large quality difference, in a case like that, people usually go for the higher quantity."

"If on the other hand, I compare a Nexian book about 10 magic items, to an Absalom book of spell design, what does the number 10 really mean there?  It's not more or less than any obvious numbers about the spell design book.  So what you see instead is Nexian and Absalom, where Nex has a better magical reputation than Absalom, apparently, obviously I'm just going off Carissa here."

"Similarly if I compare the Osirian book of 30 items to the Absalom spell design book, the number 30 doesn't have some other number to compare to, so everybody goes for Absalom because they have a better magical reputation than Osirion... was what was supposed to happen, but didn't, either because we didn't run any pilot studies to see what usually worked on people, or because our groups were so tiny that randomness dominated."

"Buuut you at least got to see that the Osirian book looked a little less attractive, next to the Absalom spell design book, than the Nexian book looked next to the Absalom spell design book, even though if you put the Osirian and Nexian books side-by-side that one person went for the Osirian one with more items."

"If I could run more probes like this, I could probably find a slightly different version that reliably gave the result I was hoping for if you run it on three groups of 20 students, say, who hadn't been warned of what the test was about."

"Not quite the illustrative results I was hoping for, but that's what you happens when you run really tiny experimental groups, and don't do any pilot samples to pretest your theories about how people will actually react."

"The underlying theory, how it was supposed to work here, is that if you see the Osirian book of 30 items side-by-side with the Nexian book of 10 items, that makes the quantity of items salient, it makes the quantity mean something.  If you don't pick a very large quality difference, in a case like that, people usually go for the higher quantity."

"If on the other hand, I compare a Nexian book about 10 magic items, to an Absalom book of spell design, what does the number 10 really mean there?  It's not more or less than any obvious numbers about the spell design book.  So what you see instead is Nexian and Absalom, where Nex has a better magical reputation than Absalom, apparently, obviously I'm just going off Carissa here."

"Similarly if I compare the Osirian book of 30 items to the Absalom spell design book, the number 30 doesn't have some other number to compare to, so everybody goes for Absalom because they have a better magical reputation than Osirion... was what was supposed to happen, but didn't, either because we didn't run any pilot studies to see what usually worked on people, or because our groups were so tiny that randomness dominated."

"Buuut you at least got to see that the Osirian book looked a little less attractive, next to the Absalom spell design book, than the Nexian book looked next to the Absalom spell design book, even though if you put the Osirian and Nexian books side-by-side that one subject went for the Osirian one with more items."

"If I could run more probes like this, I could probably find a slightly different version that reliably gave the result I was hoping for if you run it on three groups of 20 students, say, who hadn't been warned of what the test was about."

"Not quite the illustrative results I was hoping for, but that's what happens when you run really tiny experimental groups, and don't do any pilot samples to pretest your theories about how people will actually react."

"The underlying theory, how it was supposed to work here, is that if you see the Osirian book of 30 items side-by-side with the Nexian book of 10 items, that makes the quantity of items salient, it makes the quantity mean something.  If you don't pick a very large quality difference, in a case like that, people usually go for the higher quantity."

"If on the other hand, I compare a Nexian book about 10 magic items, to an Absalom book of spell design, what does the number 10 really mean there?  It's not more or less than any obvious numbers about the spell design book.  So what you see instead is Nexian and Absalom, where Nex has a better magical reputation than Absalom, apparently, obviously I'm just going off Carissa here."

"Similarly if I compare the Osirian book of 30 items to the Absalom spell design book, the number 30 doesn't have some other number to compare to, so everybody goes for Absalom because they have a better magical reputation than Osirion... was what was supposed to happen, but didn't, either because we didn't run any pilot studies to see what usually worked on people, or because our groups were so tiny that randomness dominated."

"Buuut you at least got to see that the Osirian book looked a little less attractive, next to the Absalom spell design book, than the Nexian book looked next to the Absalom spell design book, even though if you put the Osirian and Nexian books side-by-side that one subject went for the Osirian one with more items."

"If I could run more probes like this, I could probably find a slightly different version that reliably gave the result I was hoping for if you run it on three groups of 20 students, say, who hadn't been warned of what the test was about."