Anchoring and Attentional Bias...

I thought I might take a bit of a deeper look into cognitive biases... I decided to start going through the list that I mentioned in my previous blog... and "begin at the beginning" to quote Lewis Carrol...  on the list that is...

Anchoring - "the human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or peice of information when making decisions."

Real World Example:  My oldest daughter was looking for a new "used" car.  Her last vehicle went to, let's say, about 145,000 miles before it was in need of a new engine.  While assisting her in looking for another vehicle, she focused solely on the number of miles that were listed for the vehicle.  She was not concerned with the make/model/year/expectancy/maintainence it recieved/etc.  Based on her limited experience with vehicles, and the fact that that particular vehicle may have needed the new engine at 145,000 miles due to excessive wear and subsequent neglect of other parts, she was "anchored" into believing that mileage was the goal of the purchase.

Possible Testing Example:  A new tester works for Project A for a year or so.  Project A consists of one large customer.  The tester's job is XYZ, the customer does all of the Acceptance Testing and provides the bugs to the team that they want fixed when it comes to usability.  That tester now transfers over to Project D.  Project D distributes their product/application/system to a wide variety of customers.  The tester is now faced with the "anchor" of how things were done on Project A.  If not careful to find out the differences in what is expected of them in Project D, the project will indeed suffer for quite some time.  If they wish to "sail" through this project and give the stakeholders the necessary feedback they need on usability, they need to pull up the "anchor" of their belief that the "customer is always right".  They will need to now look at usability testing in a new light, based on general standards, using heuristics and oracles.  (Here is a great post by Michael Bolton concerning oracles.)

Attentional Bias - "the tendency of emotionally dominant stimuli in one's environment to preferentially draw and hold attention."

I did a little research into this particular cognitive bias and it appears to be emotional in a largely negative way.  I would almost want to group this in with cultural differences between groups or individuals as well as taking into account their own personal backgrounds.  I would think this is a tough one to even acknowledge and analyze if you don't think about it "on purpose".

"Maybe" a Real World Example:  I worked under the management of my father for six years.  During this time, it was quite evident to me that he was a male chauvenist.  There were four of us working under his management:  two females, two males.  The males did less work and got more money.  After the business was no longer in existence, I confronted him on this and was told, "so and so should get more money, he is the provider of his family".  He always believed... and showed his beliefs... that males were the "providers" and thus they should earn more money.  (Note:  It never crossed his mind that I am provide for my family, it only crossed his mind that I am female.)  This burned into my brain a bias - an "emotional" bias - towards "hearing" when anyone mentions gender in the workplace and in general.

"Maybe" a Possible Testing Example:  A female tester works on a team that includes only male developers.  They offer to give her help on testing.  She sees it as they are thinking she is "less smart" than a male tester would be and she shuts down her listening skills. 

This was a hard one for me to really wrap myself into.  Either I am totally ignoring this bias or I don't really have it.  My "emotional"/attentional biases are easy for me to spot.  I know who I am and where I have come from.  They rarely, if ever, surface in my career.  It is too "emotional" for me to think about anyway... I rely too much on logic...

Because this particular bias was related to "emotion", I recalled a presentation from Michael Bolton on Emotions and Oracles.  I think, that if you find yourself wanting to take this bias and investigate it further with your testing career, and even if you don't... that you read this.  Even though I am thought of by most, that think they know me, to be really the daughter of Spock, even I learned much from reading it.