本論文研究人如何估計事件發生的時間長度和估計字詞發生的頻率，同時探討情境訊息對估計行為的影響，本研究探討的情境訊息包含文化差異和情緒。
Griffiths 和 Tenenbaum (2006)的研究指出日常生活中的預測行為模式、型態，符合依貝氏定理對實際的統計資料做運算的型態，包含Gaussian, power-law, 或 Erlang 三種。在本研究的第一個實驗，重複他們的研究方法，並在德國和台灣收測。德國人和台灣人的時間觀念有差異，因此這個跨文化的計劃讓我們能夠探討時間觀念對時間長度的估計行為有何影響。結果顯示，人在時間長度上的估計形態和實際統計資料的形態一致，但在時間長度估計的量上，應該還受到其他因素的影響。
兩個物件的相關性可以決定於此兩物件在概念上的一致性。情緒的正向和負向就是一個很明顯的分類，而且有許多研究顯示，情緒會影響人的心智上的運算，因此本研究的第2、3個實驗，延續實驗一的問卷型式，將情感的情境融入詞頻估計的作業。結果支持本實驗情緒詞的詞頻估計除了有機會受實際經驗的影響，更能確定的是和字詞情緒聯想的相關程度。結果顯示除了實際的環境訊息，情緒正負向和激動程度都對人估計行為有影響，另外，部分結果支持對兩物件相關性的判斷，是決定此兩物件在心智上的分類是否一致。
本研究目前的發現顯示，當人在處理數量訊息時，會受到背景訊息的影響，而有相對程度的數量改變，在本研究中探討的背景訊息包含文化差異和情緒。

This work investigates how people estimate durations of events and frequencies of words and the influence of contextual information, such as culture and emotion, on the estimation.
Griffiths and Tenenbaum (2006) proposed that people's prediction functions took on different shapes (priors) in different domains in Bayesian analysis. Here, we replicated their study in Taiwan and Germany to examine whether duration estimation varied with culture. The results showed that people's prediction was sensitive to the shape of empirical information, but not to the quantity of empirical information.
We further examined how people estimate the frequency of one word given that of another when the two words have varying affective associations. The results showed that frequency estimation of the target word was influenced by the empirical frequency information of the stimulus word as well as by the emotional valence and the level of arousal of the stimulus word according to an affective word norm.
The present findings suggested that contextual information, such as culture and emotion, can affect quantitative estimation.

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