ORIG I NAL AR TI CLE The effect of context and individual differences in human‐generated randomness Mikołaj Biesaga1 | Szymon Talaga1 | Andrzej Nowak1,2 1The Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Many psychological studies have shown that human‐generated sequences Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland deviate from the mathematical notion of randomness. Therefore, the in‐ 2Department of Psychology, Florida ability to generate perfectly random data is currently considered a well‐ Atlantic University, USA established fact. What remains an open problem is the degree to which Correspondence this (in)ability varies between different people and can be affected by Mikołaj Biesaga, The Robert Zajonc contextual factors. In this paper, we investigate this problem. We focus Institute for Social Studies, University of on between‐subjects variability concerning the level of randomness of Warsaw, ul. Stawki 5/7, 00‐183, Warsaw, generated sequences under different task descriptions. In two studies, Poland Email:
[email protected] we used a modern, robust measure of randomness based on algorith‐ mic information theory to assess human‐generated series. We tested Funding information hypotheses regarding human‐generated randomness vis‐a‐vis effects of Project was supported by the Polish context, mathematical experience, fatigue, and the tendency to engage National Science Centre under grant in challenging tasks. Our results show that the activation of the ability agreement No.: 2019/35/N/HS6/04318. to produce random‐like series depends on the relevance of contextual cues which rather help to avoid the production of trivially non‐random sequences than increase the rate of production of highly complex ones. We also show that people tend to get tired very quickly and after the first few attempts to generate highly random‐like series their performance de‐ creases significantly and they start to produce markedly more patterned sequences.