Aces dominate our mental images of playing cards.

While playing cards sybolize games of chance, it turns out our preferences for said cards are anything but chance. New research shows we definitely have biases when it comes to remembering and choosing cards:

Simply asked to name a card, there was a strong bias for choosing the Ace of Spades, followed by the Queen of Hearts and then other high-ranking cards. When participants chose a number card, there was a bias for naming 3s and 7s the most and 6s the least (a phenomenon well known by magicians). Overall, cards from the Spades and Hearts were chosen more than the other two suits. There was a gender difference again: men tended to name the Queen of Hearts more than women, and women more often named the King of Hearts than men. These same results were pretty much repeated when participants were asked to visualise a card before naming it.

[via BPS Research Digest] [img]