The value of banknotes: relevance of size, colour and design

Abstract

In the current study, we evaluate the relevance of three physical features when people retrieve the monetary value of banknotes. To this end, three monetary comparison tasks were designed in which in each trial a pair of banknotes were presented and participants selected the one with higher monetary value. In each task, a different banknote feature (size, colour and design) was examined and a congruent and an incongruent condition (the value of the physical feature corresponded or not to its actual value, respectively) were compared to a neutral condition (no information about the physical feature was provided). We found a pattern of facilitation and interference effects which suggests that size is the most relevant physical feature for accessing the monetary value of banknotes followed by colour. However, the availability of a variety of designs across banknotes seemed not to facilitate the performance of the task, but rather the opposite, hindering the monetary comparison task.