The New York Times recently published an interactive illustration of confirmation bias: guess the rule obeyed by a sequence of three numbers. I won’t go into detail about the game other than to say that it’s wonderfully simple and I definitely fell into the mind trap. Some implications for politics and business are presented after players submit their answers and this can provide a launch point for class discussion.
The puzzle nicely complements the Zendo game in which players create hypotheses about an arrangement of blocks — by demonstrating the cognitive biases that affect much of our decision making.
Interestingly, I found myself needing some wrong answers to fully test my guess. But in “real life”, I’m sure I prefer “yes” answers.
Yes.