Perceptual and Cognitive Judgments Show Both Anchoring and Repulsion

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Perceptual Psychology

Background:

• Anchoring bias causes judgments to favor previously seen values.
• Perceptual illusions can demonstrate repulsion, the opposite effect.
• These biases have historically been studied separately.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the co-occurrence of anchoring and repulsion biases.
• To determine if these biases operate in both cognitive and perceptual tasks.
• To explore the conditions under which each bias manifests.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments were conducted with adult participants (N=200).
• Participants completed both cognitive and perceptual judgment tasks.
• The influence of prior comparative decisions on judgments was analyzed.

Main Results:

• Anchoring and repulsion biases were found to co-occur in both task types.
• The direction of the bias was dependent on the comparison value.
• Distant values led to attraction (anchoring), while nearby values led to repulsion.

Conclusions:

• Anchoring and repulsion are domain-general biases that can occur simultaneously.
• A unified theoretical framework is needed to explain both phenomena.
• Sampling models of cognition offer a potential basis for integrating these biases.