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| Above Average Effect | A cognitive bias where individuals overestimate their own abilities and personal qualities when compared to others. This feeling of superiority has been found in academic performance, work performances, personality traits, and social abilities.
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| Absurdity heuristic | A decision-making short-cut where an absurd response is provided to a situation that appears to be atypical, defying logic, and is believed to be absurd as well. → Read more |
| Acquiescence bias | A yes-saying bias where the respondents to a survey or interview tend to answer yes or agree with everything implied in the survey. One tip to reduce this bias is to include both positive and negatively-coded items in the survey.
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| Admissible heuristic | This heuristic is common in path-finding algorithms. The cost identified by the heuristic for traveling between two points must not be more than the least possible cost for traveling between these points.
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| Affect heuristic | A kind of decision-making short cut where current emotions decide the course of action. Positive emotions cause high benefits and low risk while negative ones make the decision-maker perceive low benefits and higher risks for the same situation. It leads to quicker, but sometimes, poor decisions. → Read more |
| Algorithmic Pricing | A process where product prices are determined on algorithms which collect data about probability of sales, competitors' pricing, personal information of the existing customers, and inventory information. This pricing structure is reported to be 10 times more volatile.
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| Ambiguity Bias | A bias where people prefer alternatives with more details and description of their probabilities over the more ambiguous alternatives. The application of this bias is that customers should be provided with as much information that can help them choose one's product or service over others as possible.
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| Anchoring | A decision-making short-cut which jumps at the first occurring idea and bases the decision around it, failing to take cognizance of alternative scenarios and a complete information. This cognitive bias also precludes the decision-maker to consider subsequent information that may be inconsistent with the anchor.
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| Attitude Polarization | The strengthening of a belief or the viewpoint of an individual regarding a particular situation with reference to the initial standing of that individual. Such behavior is usually observed after knowing more details about the incident under consideration.
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| Attribute Substitution | A cognitive bias that uses an easier, emotional solution for a complex problem which becomes an incorrect substitution. The emotional response is not rational and reflective but based on ingrained biases within the person, a generalization or an analogy which does not really fit the situation. → Read more |
| Authority heuristic | The use of the name of a person or a condition just to create authority in the argument. No need of such arguments is there but they are used to create an impact on the other person. Politics, education, and science are the heuristics that are mostly used.
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| Availability Cascade | A self-fulfilling cycle which reinforces collective beliefs like global warming believed to be the cause of hurricanes hitting the US.
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| Availability heuristic | A cognitive bias during decision-making that considers only recent information or information that comes first to mind as the basis for decisions while precluding all other alternatives of the situation. This heuristic helps in making quick but incorrect decisions based on incomplete information. → Read more |
| Backfire Effect | Impact of coming in contact with a contradicting factual opinion to one's original belief results in the strength of the original beliefs. The assurance of the existence of confirmation bias is presented by this concept, which highlights that people give higher value to the facts that support their existing beliefs. → Read more |
| Backward induction | A process of retracing steps of a procedure after it has been completed to understand the constituents and their relationship amongst themselves. This process can, hence, help in understanding the best action for every step in the process, thus removing inefficiencies.
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| Baconian method | The precursor of the scientific method, this method stresses on the inductive reasoning to sift through all facts before arriving at their natural conclusions. The method follows three main steps, describe the facts, classifying them into present, absent, present in degrees, and finally, to keep only the relevant facts into consideration. → Read more |
| Barnum Effect | A belief that one's personality description is unique making a person feel special though those qualities and abilities may be distributed in a large population. Many online tests and even crystal gazing work on this model where generic results are shared with participants who believe them to apply to themselves alone.
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| Base Rate Fallacy | A preference during decision-making to consider individual cases rather than general information about all similar cases. This fallacy has important repercussions as it is responsible for incorrect diagnosis of medical conditions, mis-identification of terrorists, and false reliance on eye witness testimonies in many cases. → Read more |
| Begging The Question | One of the fallacies during the argument in which the initial opinion is given as the crux of the argument to prove that facts have been used in the discussion to support the point of argument, which in reality is a mere restatement of the original argument. → Read more |
| Bias Blind Spot | This model states that everyone has a blind spot about their biases with people who believe they have none at a higher risk than others. Further, everyone believes others to have biases but the same to not apply to them.
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| Bizarreness Effect | Higher tendency of the individuals to remember or recall the information associated with unusual or odd instances wording or events as compared to the normal or common sentences. It is still a conflicted point of view, accepted by some scholars and rejected by the others. → Read more |
| Brute Force | According to this concept, the trial and error method for getting the right answer to the problem. In this phenomenon, the individual makes haphazard guesses about the problem under discussion with a hope that something would fit as the right guess. → Read more |
| Cherry Picking | A dangerous heuristic where people see and use the results that fit their claims and needs while ignoring or not revealing those that do not fit them. The worst form of cherry picking is the misuse of data which is used to lend weight to one's case.
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| Circular reasoning | A path where each reasoning is supported by the earlier premise which is, in turn, supported by the proposition, all of which are not reinforced by any new or substantial information. Examples are the email frauds which say that the lottery amount will be sent once the courier charged are paid.
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| Clustering illusion | An illusion where a researcher tends to find naturally occurring clusters of an observation or variable in a sample to be non-random, and hence, attributable to his study or experiment though they are actually random. This illusion is fuelled by the selection bias where people perceive small samples to have less variation than bigger ones.
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| Cognitive Dissonance | The discomfort faced by the individual while believing in two different and contrary viewpoints and beliefs regarding a particular topic. The inability to know the right one constantly disturbs the mind, giving rise to this situation.
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| Cognitive inertia | A concept that stresses on the inertia prevalent in people which prevents them changing their beliefs once they are formed. This inertia may even extend to a reluctance to change them even in the face of contrary evidence. One example is the resistance to change seen in organizations.
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| Complexity Bias | Logical fallacy in which the individuals believe that the complex solutions or concepts can prove better than the simple ones, without any other logic involved in it. In this concept, the complexity involved in the process gives them the undue satisfaction that it is the best way of doing things or the best concept, depending upon the situation at hand. → Read more |
| Computational heuristic intelligence | The technique of programming which works on the example based ways for solving problems rather than the intelligence one. In this situation, the complex issues are avoided by the machine to have a feedback-enabled mechanism.
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| Confirmation Bias | The concept in which the individuals tend to find information, recall it and use it in a way that would favor the existing concepts or their side of the argument every time. It can also be termed as the lack of inductive reasoning, which ultimately leads a single side of the argument to be the compelling one. → Read more |
| Congruence Bias | A bias where people tend to zero in on the first solution and not consider other alternatives which may equally be relevant. One application of congruence bias is when a researcher designs his entire survey to prove his hypothesis correct while failing to explore any opinions that might disprove it.
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| Conjunction fallacy | An example of stereotyping where specific conditions related to a situation are considered to be more important than single general conditions that define it. This fallacy helps explain why good liars embellish the truth more as people perceive a detailed and specific explanation to be more realistic and truer than a plain one. → Read more |
| Consistent heuristic | A heuristic is deemed to be consistent when its estimate is either less than or equal to the distance from a node to the goals and the cost of making this distance. This is applied in path finding problems of artificial intelligence to find the best path to reach the goal.
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| Constructive heuristic | A heuristic which starts with an empty solution, and repeats it till a complete one is formed. An opposite heuristic is called local search heuristic which begins with a complete solution and tries to improve it through more local moves.
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| Contagion heuristic | A decision-making shortcut or heuristic that categorises a situation according to its provenance. For instance, if it has been in contact with something considered good, it is bracketed as such while it may be viewed as contaminated if in contact with something perceived as bad. Superstitions are a very good example. → Read more |
| Content sniffing | A practice of inspection of the contents of a byte stream to try and understand the file formats within it. It is used usually when there is no or little metadata available to interpret the file correctly.
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| Contrast Effect | The relative change of the perception of the individuals when considering a particular object or phenomenon in isolation as compared to the successive or simultaneous exposure. It has two main types i.e. simultaneous and successive contrast effect. → Read more |
| Creeping Normality | An unpleasant change that is accepted because it is happening slowly. This term is mostly used to describe the changes that take place slowly. If these changes took place quickly at once than people cannot accept them. → Read more |
| Cross-entropy method | Monte Carlo method that can prove helpful in sampling and optimization of the continuous and combinatorial data set. Rare estimation event employs this technique effectively. → Read more |
| Cryptomnesia | This phenomenon is associated with forgotten memory. In this phenomenon, individuals tend to retrieve information from their brain assuming it new but they have already gone through it somewhere back in time and they do not realize this fact, believing it to be a new idea or new piece of information. → Read more |
| Curse Of Knowledge | A situation where the sender of a message assumes that the receivers know and understand the context of the message. Frequently seen with teachers who are unable to transfer knowledge to students because of lack of empathy and understanding of their level of knowledge.
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| Debiasing | A formal process of reducing one's bias and improve judgment and decision-making. Incentives, nudges or positive encouragement, and training, are used for debaising.
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| Decision Algorithms | The algorithm used for creating alternative versions of the solutions that are available for a problem. Such a process is automated to facilitate decision making. → Read more |
| Decision Trees | These are the tools for making decisions based on the description of the possible outcomes of a decision, resource utilization and the probability of occurrence of a particular consequence because of the decision made. In other words, it can be considered as the diagrammatical explanation of the results, decisions, and events. → Read more |
| Decoy Effect | A strategic placement of a third "decoy" option that is asymmetrically dominated, i.e. it is inferior to the first but better and worse than the second in some respects. In this way, marketers are able to fool customers in finding the second option more reasonable, better value, and less expensive, thereby increasing their sale price.
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| Disposition Effect | A concept of behavioural finance, this signifies that stock purchasers tend to sell stocks that may climb higher in the future while retaining stocks that are losing value. The premise behind the disposition effect is that people dislike losing far more than they enjoy winning.
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| Duck test | The presence of unique characteristics associated with an entity are valid proof of its existence, i.e. if something swims, quacks, and appears like a duck then it is a duck. This phrase is used to describe situations and things that are easily identifiable though they may or may not be definable. → Read more |
| Dunning Kruger Effect | An illusion where people with less cognitive ability actually perceive their intellectual worth higher than others and estimate themselves to be superior to others. This illusion is fuelled by their lack of cognitive ability to analyse their own self-worth and compare their abilities with others.
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| Duration Neglect | The pain is not dependent on the duration of the painful event rather there are two other factors involved in it i.e. peak and diminishing time. It deals with the judgment of the people about the painfulness and is usually related to their own self rather than the others.
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| Edit Distance | Refers to finding the dissimilarity of the two operations (probably words) from one another. It is done by counting the steps required to change one of the words into the other. Or, in other words, the number of edits required for making the two words similar can be referred to this phenomenon. It is usually done in the coding language, so editing every letter simultaneously is not possible. → Read more |
| Educated guess | The guesses made by the individuals based on the prior experience or level of knowledge. Such guesses are made by the experts of the field and have a higher tendency of becoming true if the calculation done for reaching a guess is adequate. → Read more |
| Effort heuristic | This is a decision-making short-cut or heuristic that believes that more the effort gone into producing an object or discharging a service, higher is its perceived value. This rule of thumb explains why customers are willing to spend more for hand-made products even though machine-made ones might be better or at least as good as them. → Read more |
| Empathy Gap | The bias created because of the underestimation of one's visceral drives. In this situation, individuals cannot measure the impact of such drives on future behavior and state. It can vary from one individual to another and in one stage of life to another.
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| Ensemble Learning | A part of machine learning techniques, ensemble methods use an ensemble of techniques or models to find one optimal model that can best predict the solution. It can be understood by an example of taking advice from an ensemble of expert with varying degrees of accuracy where the combined accuracy level becomes much higher together.
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| Equity heuristic (aka 1/N heuristic) | Concept of distribution of resources equally amongst all the options available. Mainly, it is used in the stock market along with the discussion of the parental time and efforts in the children. → Read more |
| Eurisko | Programming language that is developed as a representation language. It can manage to change its own heuristics and thus can be useful in development and language applications. → Read more |
| Evaluation function | It is a function, which helps the gaming software to analyze the optimal position for a certain object. By default, this function gives speed a dominating hand over the accuracy. This also helps in reduction of the impact caused by the lack of accuracy. → Read more |
| Expectation Bias | This bias influences the behavior of the individuals and their perception of other peop;e around them. The expectation about the outcomes of a task can induce changes in the normal behavior, showing it to be the impact of expectation bias. → Read more |
| Extremal optimization | Used for addressing the problems related to combinatorial optimization. Bak-Sneppen model has been used for creating this terms and the phenomenon associated with it. → Read more |
| False Analogy | An informal misconception or mistake. It applies to an arguments. It is so because the error is about what the argument is about, and not the argument itself. A comparison shows that two concepts which are same (A and B) have a common relation to some property. → Read more |
| False Consensus Effect | An exaggerated belief that one's habits, beliefs, perception, opinions, attributes and other elements are similar to the population and typical. This feeling of a false consensus helps in improving self-worth but makes an individual consider anyone who disputes this consensus as being defective.
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| False Dilemma | It is a condition where the individual restricts the choice available to him or her for a particular decision to two alternatives, falsely assuming that there are only two of these options available. But in reality, there is at least one more option present with the individual. → Read more |
| Familiarity heuristic | Closely related to availability heuristic, this phenomenon defines a decision-making short-cut where a person chooses to go with what he/she knows and is familiar with rather than choosing a scenario that is novel and strange. This heuristic may lead to both positive and negative results as the decisions are not rational but intuitive. → Read more |
| Fast-and-frugal trees | A decision-making tool which associates each action to a category proceeding in a strict specific order. Each node of the tress has two solutions, one an exit, and the other to further classification and nodes. The main characteristics of fast and frugal tress is the ease of representation and the speed with which they can be processed by a reader.
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| Fluency heuristic | A decision-making short cut where people prefer a solution which more smoothly, elegantly, and clearly defined over others. This heuristic explains how many illogical ideas are “bought” because they are presented well, thus showing its practical application in advertising. → Read more |
| Focusing Effect | Giving an extremely high level of importance to the past events while making the future decision-making. In this situation, the things gone great are expected to go great in the future as well vice versa, without the realization of change in conditions and the inherent uncertainty of the future. → Read more |
| Forensic science | The branch of science, which is used for solving the criminal and civil cases. Through the concepts and techniques involved in this field, the investigators figure out the real culprit. Some of the prominent activities include the examination of the physical evidence, medical tests of the individuals, and the interpretation of the activities of a crime scene based on the scientific evidence. → Read more |
| Forward Chaining | A famous plan or strategy, achieved by working hard and doing activities for the purpose of expert systems, business and production rule systems → Read more |
| Framing Effect | A cognitive bias where people react to the same situation differently based on how it is depicted. This framing of an alternative through a positive or a negative lens affects the perception with the decision-makers who then reacts differently.
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| Frecency | The combination of regency and frequency. In this situation, the number of occurrence of a thing and the time of occurrences are combined.
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| Frequency Illusion | Also known as Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, this cognitive bias states that an individual feels he/she encounters a new information very frequently after coming across it for the first time. It is explained by the mind noticing the new information more and the confirmation bias reinforcing it.
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| Fudge factor | A figure or element introduced in a calculation or model to make it fit the observations or expectations. → Read more |
| Functional Fixedness | The use of a particular object or a thing only in the ways in which they had been used traditionally. No new usage of the object when not found or not considered for future usage refers to this bias.
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| Fundamental Attribution Error | A cognitive bias where individuals attribute other people's behaviour on their personal characteristics and ignore the situational context. Also, people attribute their own acts to situational factors while believing in their own good intentions.
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| Gambler’s Fallacy | According to this concept, it is believed that the event occurring in a higher frequency now is going to occur less frequently in the future and vice versa. Such a belief prevails because it is believed that the occurrences of a certain type of event will be exhausted to show up in the future, so the only type left will be observed in the future events. → Read more |
| Garbage-In Garbage-Out | It is a prominent concept of computer sciences, which is used to explain that the quality of input determines the quality of output. In other words, without inputting the right code would not lead to the generation of the right outcome. → Read more |
| Gaze heuristic | A decision-making short-cut or heuristic in which the decision-maker makes a fast, accurate decisions by fixing his/her gaze on a fixed point. One popular example is of a catcher who keeps his gaze fixed on the ball without worrying about a number of other factors which cannot be factored in short periods of time. → Read more |
| Graduated optimization | Technique in which a complex problem is solved by using a simple version of the problem at first. After solving the simple version, the complexity of the problem will increase gradually until the actual problem with the same difficulty is not solved. → Read more |
| Group Attribution Error | An error which takes two forms, Type 1 where it is believed that the characteristics of group members reflect the whole group and Type II, where it is perceived that the group's decisions are based on each member's individual preferences.
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| Guided Local Search | Induction of a change in the behaviors of search engine for generating specific results based on a certain factor. In this search method, meta-heuristics is used which helps in refining and filtering the possibilities of relevant data according to the search query. → Read more |
| Halo Effect | A cognitive bias where people judge others based on their physical appearance and whoever they deem to be good is believed to have all good characteristics and whoever is perceived as unpleasant to look at, is painted in the same brush. The latter belief is termed as the horn effect.
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| Hard Easy Effect | A cognitive bias where individuals believe they will perform better when doing a hard task but perceive their failure to be more likely when they are performing a simple one. In other words, individuals overestimate their abilities to perform difficult tasks and underestimate those for easy ones.
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| Hasty Generalization | The generalizations that are not backed by evidence or arguments. A stereotypic statement is usually made in this situation for characterization all the members of the particular group or the things under discussion.
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| Heroic theory of invention and scientific development | This theory believes that the creators of the new products, technology and concepts are actually the heroes of the nation. They are the great scientists and genius people who have changed the world. → Read more |
| Heuristic argument | This argument is made without much rigor at the initial stages but are based on the principles, which have been proved true by trial and error method of experimentation. Additionally, they are open to further trial and experimentation for the purpose of the validity of the argument. → Read more |
| Heuristic systematic model of information processing | It is a prominent model of communication, which explains the two ways in which the information is processed by individuals in case of persuasive messages. These include systematic, and heuristics. According to this model, the persuasive messages results in reducing the use of cognitive skills of the individuals and thus the intake of information and the chances of implementation increases to a greater extent. → Read more |
| Heuristics | The method of reaching the solution of a problem immediately without involving the practical log process of thinking and rational decision making. The optimal solution is not guaranteed in this case and it usually works when the practical solution is either not possible due to time constraints or because of lack of information. → Read more |
| Heuristics in judgment and decision-making | The simple assumptions and rules set in the mind of the individuals for making judgments and decision define the role of heuristics in judgment and decision-making. In these rules, importance is given to one or more aspects but clear ignorance can be seen in some of the other aspects, which might have a role in the occurrence of an event. Usually, the decision involving intuition or rapid analysis uses heuristics. However, the heuristics can also be used in deliberate judgments. → Read more |
| Hindsight Bias | Bias associated with the belief that the event was predictable (before its occurrence) after it has occurred. In reality, the basis of predictability of the event in the way it has occurred is never found. So, it is just the perception of people that they could have known about the event that has occurred. → Read more |
| Hitchens’s razor | The burden of proof about the truthfulness of an argument is the responsibility of the claimant. If proved, the claim is considered correct but if not proved, the opposite is considered authentic and there are no further legalities allowed.
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| Hot-hand fallacy | A belief that a successful task is liable to make its owner more successful at completing similar tasks in the immediate future. This fallacy has been proved by statistical studies in certain sports like basketball where a successful shooter is more likely to have “hot hands” or be “on fire”. → Read more |
| Human biocomputer | Hardware of humans. Some of the components of this biocomputer include brain, hear and all the internal organs of the body. Additionally, the systems performing each of the important functions of the human life include cardiovascular system, digestive system etc. are all included in the elaboration of this term. → Read more |
| Humor Effect | The information or things that people associate with humor are expected to be retained and recalled from the memory in a better way as compared to the serious or boring information. The information in itself does not need to be humorous; rather the perception has the governing role in it. → Read more |
| Hyper-heuristic | A technique of applying several simple heuristics in combination to solve computational problems and thereby achieve automatic solutions that search for, identify, and apply machine learning techniques. This combination of heuristics adds the strengths of each method while controlling their individual weaknesses.
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| Identifiable Victim Effect | Increase in the softness in the people when it comes to the reference of a particular individual who is the victim of the brutality (whatever it may be), especially in comparison to the general description of people in the group, which might be facing the same level of brutality. In such condition, the helping capabilities of the people are also enhanced. → Read more |
| Illusion of asymmetric insight | An illusion where people believe their own understanding of others to be better than vice versa. AS a result, any perceptive remarks are believed to be more surprising when made by others but not so when made by self. This illusion may lead individuals to not consider others' opinions and contributions to be as important and significant as one's own.
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| Illusion Of Control | Illusion faced by people that they were the reason for the certain phenomenon to occur in that specific way. Such people consider that their actions have made or ruined someone's life or business deal. It can be extended to every event of the life of the individuals. One of the notable things here is that they are not directly in control in any way. → Read more |
| Illusion Of Superiority | Illusion where individuals have the wrong perception about their capabilities, skills or personal traits in comparison to the other individuals. They think that they are better than the other individuals to which the comparison is being made. → Read more |
| Illusion Of Transparency | Illusion in individuals regarding the level of understandability of the mental state of the others' by themselves and the perception about their level of understandability in the minds of the others. This illusion is based on the belief that an individual knows others to the best possible level and the others' understand him or her to the best possible level. → Read more |
| Illusory Correlation | In psychology, illusory correlation is the fact of being aware of a relationship between people, events, or behaviors even when no such relationship exists. It is an illusion in one's mind. → Read more |
| Imitate the majority heuristic (aka follow the majority heuristic) | Tendency of the individuals to follow the decision made by the majority of the group members. This is because people believe it to be a better option and socially acceptable in the reference group, which helps them in making this decision. → Read more |
| Imitate the successful heuristic (aka follow the best heuristic) | Tendency of the individual to follow and make choices according to the perceived best individual in a particular reference group or social circle. One thing to note here is that the best heuristic worked on the perceived best. They don't have to be actually the best. → Read more |
| Impact Bias | According to this bias, the emotional state of an individual with reference to the future is overestimated. Both the length of the emotional duration and the intensity of duration are expected to prevail for a longer time period. Durability bias, which reflects nearly similar conditions about the future expectation, is the form of impact bias. → Read more |
| In-Group Bias | This bias can be seen in the groups. In such a bias, the individuals tend to provide excessive favors to the members of one's own group as compared to the other people, which are not the part of the group. → Read more |
| Insensitivity to predictability | The reliability and accuracy of the data provided are not managed by the heuristics of an individual while making the decision, which results in faulty predictability of an event that is to occur in future and thus such individuals are not capable of predictability.
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| Insensitivity to Sample Size | Also known as the law of small numbers, this is a cognitive bias or misjudgement in which people are unable to perceive sample sizes with accuracy. In reality, smaller sizes show a higher variation in samples while larger numbers are more representative. → Read more |
| Irrational Escalation | Also known as escalation of commitment, this is a tendency to invest more time, effort, and resources after a bad decision or action with an irrational hope that the initial investment will be recovered. In economics, a term of sunk-cost fallacy describes this mistaken belief of recovering sunk cost while investing more resources that can be reasonably expected.
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| Key Derivation Function | Most commonly used in cryptography, where the Key Derivation Function is used to find the secret key. The secret key is deduced from the master key, a password or passphrase using this function. The application of this function is seen in situations where a passkey cannot be directly used for verification rather than an alternative version is required for this purpose. → Read more |
| Killer heuristic | A technique used commonly in the two-player game. It is used for the efficiency enhancement of alpha-beta pruning. It ultimately impacts the minimax algorithm. The exponential search time phenomenon is used for finding the next possible move of the other player. Overall, it enhances the user experience in the two-player game. → Read more |
| Knowledge inertia | A barrier to effective knowledge management and change management in organizations, this is explained through three dimensions, experience inertia, learning inertia, and thinking inertia. It denotes a reluctance to adopt new knowledge and experience while holding on to the old.
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| Law of small numbers | The judgmental unfairness which happens when it is thought that the parts of a selective population can be estimated from a small number of observations or information. → Read more |
| Littlewood’s three principles of real analysis | The principles state that "every set is a finite sum of intervals, every function is continuous, and every convergent sequence is nearly convergent". The second principle is derived from Lusin's theorem and the third from Egorov's theorem.
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| Loss Aversion | The trait to reduce the risk involved while maintaining the same level of gains. It is most popularly seen in the investment concept where the loss averse people invest in the lesser risky alternative such as saving whereas the others can invest in business etc. → Read more |
| Lucky Streak | Constant winning in gambling. Usually, it refers to the luck of the individual more than the technique. → Read more |
| M-ratio | This is the time till a player in a poker game can sit and wait without making any decisions or move in the game. However, the passive game does not exclude the player from the compulsory bets. This number is also known as M Ratio or M Factor too. The application of this number is relevant in a poker tournament more than the individual games. → Read more |
| Mere Exposure Effect | An effect where familiarity leads to not contempt but likability. The more we know a person or an element, the more we prefer it over others. This effect has wide applications in advertising and marketing with celebrities using it to improve their brand value.
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| Meta-optimization | One method of optimization is based on the optimization of the other. Meta optimization overall increases the level of optimization to be used. → Read more |
| Misconceptions of regression | The fallacy in which the assumption of the individual is that an abnormal phenomenon has turned to normal again because of the corrective actions especially employed for making it better. In reality, neither there are any corrective actions taken nor is there any role of the corrective phenomenon. The natural fluctuations are the actual reason for getting it back to the original. → Read more |
| Misinformation Effect | The lack of recall ability in the individuals when remembering the episodic events because of the new information. This impact is different in the people of different ages, people having different personality traits and imagery abilities of the individual.
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| Misperceptions of chance | This misconception arises with the expectation of the individuals that the small sample sizes are actually the representatives of the large samples. Additionally, the immediate self-correction of the chance events associated with probability etc. is also associated with this concept. → Read more |
| Money illusion | A tendency to perceive money for its purchasing power which is based on a historical frame of reference rather than in its real terms which are based on the prevalent political, economic, social, and other factors. The Consumer Price Index is a valid measure of the real value of money over time.
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| Mood Congruent Memory Bias | A specific mood of an individual determines the memories that are recalled at a particular point if time. In general terms, such a condition corresponds to the psychological disease. → Read more |
| Moral Luck | When an important part of what someone does depends on factors that are not in his control but still one continues to treat him in with respect as an object of moral judgment → Read more |
| Multi-Prob Cut | Alpha-beta pruning search requires Multi-Prob Cut. It is used in gaming where null move scenarios create problems for the players as they are used to gaining an advantage when considering pass as an option. → Read more |
| Multiple discovery | The school of thought who believes that a certain discovery or invention of a new thing or concept is being done by a number of individuals and it is not restricted to a talent of a particular individual. Moreover, each of the discovery and inventing is independent and no other invention has the role in the new one.
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| Naive diversification | This is a decision-making short cut or heuristic in which people tend to choose greater variety of alternatives if asked to make a successive choice but make a more conservative choice of alternatives if faced with sequential choices. This concept finds a lot of application in the choice of investment options by customers and has been found to be as successful as the sophisticated techniques of fund planning. → Read more |
| Neuroheuristics | Study of the mid while the brain is finding appropriate solutions for the problem at hand using the short cut methods. Nature and nurture, the role of both is found and discussed using this study. Additionally, the involvement of various other disciples is present for getting the best understanding of brain functionality. → Read more |
| Normalcy Bias | An important part of disaster management, this bias shows that most individuals believe even in adverse circumstances that things will function as they normally do. This may delay their response, as they remain in denial, or deliberate on their position rather than taking decisive action.
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| Not Invented Here | The concept of not using the products and services created out of the particular geographical region, which can be the town, city or country. Usually, the country base phenomenon is used for highlighting the issue. The argument here is that external companies or people should not be chosen because of the explicit and implicit cost involved. → Read more |
| Null-move heuristic | The heuristics used to enhance the speed of the alpha-beta pruning. Two player computer games use it. Cutoff points in the minimax algorithm are sped up to gain the element of speed in the game. Other elements like accuracy etc. are not dealt with it. → Read more |
| Omission Bias | A bias where harmful actions are perceived to be worse than equally harmful omissions as actions are believed to be a more aggressive approach than inaction. It has been suggested that an equal and opposite bias also exists where action is perceived to be better than refraining from it.
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| Opportunistic Reasoning | The use of logical interference strategy to manage the artificial intelligence requires this reasoning. Drawing specific conclusions from the entire knowledge base is the aim to be achieved through it.
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| Optimism Bias | The perceptions of the individuals, which make them, think that the chances of a negative scenario to occur for them are lesser as compared to the others. The level of risk faced by such individuals is higher, but at the same time, higher self-esteem can also be expected. → Read more |
| Ostrich Effect | A term in behavioural finance where stock buyers tend to ignore or remain indifferent to negative information about their stocks, thus, refraining from making a rational decision. This effect is believed to be an attempt to reduce psychological distress.
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| Outcome Bias | The perception of people regarding the outcome of a decision, ignoring the factors that led to the making of that decision. The quality of the decision i.e. the factors playing an important role then, the resources available etc. are ignored in this situation and emphasis is laid on the outcome only. → Read more |
| Parallel tempering | Simulation method, which has been designed for the improvement of the physical system of the Monte Carlo Method. It is also known as replica exchange model.
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| Parkinson’s Law Of Triviality | Humans spend most of their time on trivial matters, which leads them to have less time for the important matters of life. This is the general human tendency, which can impact all the fields of human involvement including business and general time management.
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| Peak-end rule | A cognitive bias where people tend to estimate an experience by its peak, that is the moments when they felt the happiest or the saddest, and by how it ended rather than by analysing the entire experience. One example is the great feedback for amusement parks where people spend hours standing in lines but still remember the peak points. → Read more |
| Pessimism Bias | The tendency of individuals to consider that all the negative things are more likely to come in effect for them. It reduces the level of self-esteem and enhances the cautiousness, which can sometimes inhibit such individuals to take the necessary risk. → Read more |
| Planning Fallacy | The problem in which individuals underestimate the time required for the completion of a specific task at the initiation of the task. This phenomenon cannot be reduced to zero, even through a higher level of experience and the calculation of time for each task involved.
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| Pollen calendar | An indication of the strength of the pollen activity, including the initiation, normal spreading, and peak spreading. Allergic reactions caused as a result to individuals can be gauged, providing help in medical and forensic sciences. → Read more |
| Principle of least astonishment | A principle which states that any new feature in software design or user interface may need to be redesigned if it has a very high astonishment factor or if it is too radical and does not match the users' expectations and mental models. This principle is useful in choosing among alternatives.
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| Projection Bias | The tendency of people to believe that the feelings and beliefs of the others are and will remain in congruence with their own beliefs. Apart from comparison with others, self-projections made with such a perception can be over enthusiastic. → Read more |
| Proof Of Work | Difficult to produce but easy to verify. This system is used in generating cryptocurrency. However, the type of proof varies for every cryptocurrency. Bitcoins use hash cash proof. Experts perform different work on the applications to generate results. → Read more |
| Quantitative fallacy | Also called McNamara fallacy after its founder, this fallacy believes in basing decisions entirely on quantitative logic and not on any other. This fallacy is attributed to the false quantification of success during the Vietnam war where only one variable's values (body count of the enemy) was used to define success, precluding all others.
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| Reactance | The outcome of an extreme pressure to change the existing views or habits etc. on an individual, which results in a strengthening of the existing phenomenon. In other words, it is the opposite force of excessive persuasion. → Read more |
| Reactive Devaluation | The lesser value is given to a project or thought if it originates from the group of people that an individual does not like or does not support. In this problem, the merits and demerits of the proposal are not considered at all.
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| Recognition heuristic | A decision-making shortcut where people prefer to choose a recognized alternative over another and ascribe a higher value to it. However, subsequent studies have shown that it is not always recognition that influences decision-makers and it may be intuitive recognitive rather than lab-induced one which is more likely to be a successful predictor. → Read more |
| Reluctant Algorithms | Algorithms to find the problems to the solutions in a slow manner. Speed is not the focus here. Used in cases where so solutions are intended. → Read more |
| Representativeness heuristic | A decision-making short cut where people perceive an alternative which is more representative of the parent population to be better though it may not be the likely one. This heuristic is associated with stereotyping and has been shown to affect the diagnosis of physicians who compare their patients to earlier ones thereby falling prey to a bias. → Read more |
| Reversal test | A heuristic designed to identify and control status quo bias, reversal tests suggest an alternative position to a proposal to identify if the bias exists. Originally intended for use in bioethics, this helps in identifying if the decision-makers have a latent inertia to change and replace it with a more rational approach.
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| Rhyme as Reason effect | This effect is an illusion where anything that rhymes is believed to be more truthful than others. It is also linked to Keat's heuristics where anything which is more aesthetic is believed to be better or truer. This effect has application in advertising.
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| Rippling | The movement of the way especially when a stimulus is created. It indicates the changes from crest to trough, which can be taken synonymously to the events of human life. → Read more |
| Rosy Retrospection | Human tendency or ability for remembering or in some cases even overstating the positive aspects of that event from past and lessening or removing the negatives aspects → Read more |
| Rule of thumb | A statement or principle that might not generate accurate or reliable results every time but can be used in situations where there are no other solutions available probably because of lack of information or lack of resources. → Read more |
| Satisficing | The part of decision-making strategy where the search for the solution is continued using alternative means and solutions unless a result, which is according to the minimum threshold level, is not achieved. The aim for satisfaction can be associated with it.
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| Scarcity heuristic | A decision-making short cut where an alternative that is in short supply is believed to be more valuable than another which is abundantly available. This concept is rooted in social proof where it is believed that if others want it, then it must be good. This heuristic is applied by builders when they advertise “only a few units left”.
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| Scientific consensus | The agreement of the biggest scholar on the judgments, principles or theories, which have been produced by one or more of the scholars or scientists. Unanimity is not intended here rather a general agreement or the agreement of majority is intended. → Read more |
| Scientific enterprise | The use of resources of the private entrepreneurs in designing, managing or expanding the scientific projects. Both commercial and scientific results can be achieved through this partnership. → Read more |
| Scope Neglect | The problems in detecting the actual scope of the problem. It can result because of underestimation of the information provided or misperception of the evaluator. It is the part of the extension neglect concept.
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| Selective Perception | The tendency of individuals to see things based on their perception of right and wrong. Only the seemingly right message is understood by such individuals whereas the opposite viewpoint is considered wrong and often ignored because of this purpose. → Read more |
| Self-organising heuristic | A computing process in which the codes can change the position of the data depending on the list linked to it. All these changes are managed by the algorithm on its own. No stimulus is manually provided for the initiation of this process.
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| Sharpshooter fallacy | Related to the clustering phenomenon, this fallacy stresses on the similarities in the sample and ignores the differences, thereby, arriving at a false conclusion. This bias needs to be avoided by researchers who may believe that proving their hypotheses true is only a good outcome.
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| Similarity heuristic | A decision-making short-cut which is also essentially an adaptive strategy, this heuristic encourages people to choose an alternative that is similar to situations experienced before by them or closer to prototypes. This heuristic explains why people buy books with similar plots and clothes of certain types as familiarity offers comfort. → Read more |
| Simulation heuristic | The strategy, which helps the individuals in predicting the possibility of an event depending upon the ease of simulation of that event in their mind. If people manage to picture a scenario related to that event, then the possibility of its occurrence is higher or vice versa.
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| Slothful Induction | Appeal to coincidence, it is a misconception in which an argument or fight is not given and denied to its proper result, even though there is strong evidence that can be referred. → Read more |
| Social Comparison Bias | A bias where people tend to base their self-esteem on others' attributes. This can be demonstrated by the influence of celebrities and their lifestyles on their fans. In the business world, it has been shown that recruiters prefer candidates that do not compete with their own attributes.
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| Social-circle heuristic | Also known as "take-the-best" heuristic, it includes a person that is taking social or non-social information, and leaking it into each of their social circles, solving or recovering a census by information, opinions, and judgements given back. → Read more |
| Sour Grapes | The argument showing that the non-achievement of success in any venture is because of the problem in that venture. Lack of success often leads people to view that the venture was not worth trying. It helps them to hide their failure. → Read more |
| Spotlight Effect | A belief that one is the focus of others' thoughts and decisions as much as one's own. This fallacy of exaggerated self-importance makes individuals feel as if they are in a spotlight. This effect is linked to anchoring and a false consensus, which are both personal biases.
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| Status Quo Bias | The urge of maintenance of the existing system. No changes are preferred irrespective of the possible positive or negative impact that they can bring for the individuals. It is the emotional state, which perceives every other thing different from the existing one as the loss. → Read more |
| Sutton’s law | A law with applications in medicine, pharmacology, and It where the most obvious alternative is to be preferred over others to avoid unnecessary cost and botheration. Hence, for a physician, testing a patient for the most obvious illness is to be preferred over other less likely ones.
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| System Justification | The support of the status quo by individuals depicts this mindset. The existing level of comforts developed by the individuals is preferred and is given higher priority especially when there is a risk of disruption of the status quo. This concept is not limited to political or social standards rather the economic, technological and all other aspects are included in it.
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| Take-the-best heuristic | A decision-making short cut which estimates alternatives by ranking them through cue validity and then choosing the highest ranking one. The ranking will be based on a single attributes that discriminates among the alternatives best.
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| Talking past each other | The condition when two individuals are conversing about different subjects altogether perceiving that they are on the single page. It is a sort of misunderstanding arising from the belief of the individuals that others are on the same page too, without realizing the difference. → Read more |
| Teachable moment | The occurrence of an unplanned moment where the teacher explains something new or different from the existing lesson plan. Such a moment needs to be captured by the expertise of the teachers. It is used to discuss the concept that has gained the attention of the students. So at such moments, you can expect a better level of understanding and higher involvement from the students. → Read more |
| Technology As Magic | The use of the advanced technology is actually the magic, according to third law laid by Professor Clark. Coined by the fiction writer, the authenticity of this law has not been proven. But according to this law, the advancement in technology makes the understanding of the process difficult for general users and they consider it as magic. → Read more |
| The illusion of validity (overconfidence) | When the individuals believe that they can make accurate predictions, from a set of data, shows the overconfidence that is being claimed in deciding an uncertain event. In reality, the results might not come as the ones predicted. It is a bias that leads individuals to believe this. → Read more |
| The purpose of a system is what it does | The real purpose of the system is what it actually does not that is perceived by the creator or according to the expectation of the society (in some conditions where possible). Unless changes are made, changes in the results of the system cannot be expected. → Read more |
| Thinking, Fast and Slow | Two different ways of thought, formation exists in brains. The first system is fast and dynamic dealing with unconscious and emotional things whereas the second system is slow and effortful, which deals with logical and calculation aspects of thoughts. Both the systems have different types of cognitive abilities present in them.
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| Tit-for-Tat heuristic | In this technique, the decision about cooperating or defecting is made based on the decision made by the other part. It is important in knowing the outcomes of the game theory and is used in prisoner's dilemma investigation for a case. An individual might decide to go for cooperation first round but could change the response depending on the answer of the partner. → Read more |
| Trial and error | The continuation of attempts for a problem until the desired results is achieved. It involves the mental abilities that require excessive effort by the learner as keeping a record of the solutions applied along with thinking new solutions is done. → Read more |
| Well Travelled Road Effect | The perception of the road travelers about the time it will take to converse on a specific route. The route or road that is frequently traveled seems shorter than the occasional route irrespective of the distance or other hurdles present in each of the routes. → Read more |
| Win-stay, lose-switch | The changing of the decision if the first option does not reveal the desired result whereas sticking to it in case of positive results. Mental decisions for problem-solving are governed through this strategy. Prisoner's dilemma and other such application use this as the base. → Read more |
| Working backward | Going backward to solve the problem. The end steps are taken as the first ones in this technique to reach the solution to the problem. Better and out of the box thinking is generated from the use of such a technique. → Read more |
| Worse than average effect | This is a belief that one is worse off than others and not equipped to compete. This belief is proven to be in play when people are asked about their ability to juggle, ride unicycles, and even find a twenty-dollar bill lying around.
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| Zero-risk bias | A tendency to choose an alternative that completely eliminates risk in one respect even when there are other alternatives that would reduce the overall risk. This effect, thus focusses on reducing a small risk and ignoring the reduction of a larger one, making it a kind of myopia.
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| Zero-sum thinking | This kind of thinking or strategizing implies that one party's gain will only be at the expense of the other which will lose. Most commonly applied in economics, zero sum thinking is now replaced by sustainable thinking which believes in win-win for all stakeholders.
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