Abstract
Researchers have recently pointed out that neither biased testing nor biased evaluation of hypotheses necessitatesconfirmation bias—defined here as systematic overconfidence in a focal hypothesis— but certain testing/evaluation combinations do. One such combination is (1) a tendency to ask about features that are either very likely or very unlikely under the focal hypothesis (extremity bias) and (2) a tendency to treat confirming and disconfirming answers as more similar in terms of their diagnosticity (or informativeness) than they really are. However, in previous research showing the second tendency, materials that are highly abstract and unfamiliar have been used. Two experiments demonstrated that using familiar materials led participants to distinguish much better between the differential diagnosticity of confirming and disconfirming answers. The conditions under which confirmation bias is a serious concern might be quite limited.
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This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grants SES-0079615 and SES-0242049, and some of the results were presented at the 42nd Bayesian Research Conference, Fullerton, CA, and at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Minneapolis, MN. Michael Liersch, Jonathan Nelson, Mike Oaksford, and Fenna Poletiek provided valuable comments on earlier drafts.
Note—This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
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McKenzie, C.R.M. Increased sensitivity to differentially diagnostic answers using familiar materials: Implications for confirmation bias. Memory & Cognition 34, 577–588 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193581
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193581