RECENCY EFFECTS<br>IN PRIMARY-AGE CHILDREN AND COLLEGE STUDENTS

We investigate the evolution of probabilistic reasoning with age and some related biases, such<br>as the negative/positive recency effects. Primary school children and college students were presented with<br>probability tasks in which they were asked to estimate the likelihood of the next occurring event after a<br>sequence of independent outcomes. Results indicate that older children perform better than younger children<br>and college students. Concerning biases, the positive recency effect decreases with age whereas no age-<br>related differences are found for the negative recency effect. Theoretical and educational implications of<br>results are discussed.