A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations, which may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison with what is normatively expected; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable facts. A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics.
Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive, for example, because they lead to more effective actions in a given context or enable faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy (heuristics). Others presumably result from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms (bounded rationality), or simply from a limited capacity for information processing.
Read more about Cognitive Bias: Overview, Types of Cognitive Biases, Practical Significance
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