The capacity of short-term memory is a key constraint when people make online judgments requiring them to rely on samples retrieved from memory (e.g., Dougherty & Hunter, 2003). In this article, the authors compare 2 accounts of how people use knowledge of statistical distributions to make point estimates: either by retrieving precomputed…

The authors used the operand-recognition paradigm (C. Thevenot, M. Fanget, & M. Fayol, 2007) in order to study the strategies used by adults to solve subtraction problems. This paradigm capitalizes on the fact that algorithmic procedures degrade the memory traces of the operands. Therefore, greater difficulty in recognizing them is expected…