Prior research has shown that online recommendations have significant influence on users’ preference ratings and economic behavior. Specifically, the self-reported preference rating (for a specific consumed item) that is submitted by a user to a recommender system can be affected (i.e., distorted) by the previously observed system’s recommendation. As a result, anchoring (or anchoring-like) bia...

Modern linguistic theory posits the existence of universal constraints. But whether these constraints concern language structure, generally, or speech, specifically, is unknown. To address this question, here we ask whether the constraints identified in spoken languages transfer to sign languages. ANCHORING (McCarthy & Prince, 1993) is a putatively universal constraint on reduplication. ANCHORI...

Anchoring is the problem of connecting, inside an artificial system, symbols and sensor data that refer to the same physical objects in the external world. This problem needs to be solved in any robotic system that incorporates a symbolic component. However, it is only recently that the anchoring problem has started to be addressed as a problem per se, and a few general solutions have begun to ...

Judgmental anchoring—the assimilation of a numeric estimate towards a previously considered standard—is an exceptionally ubiquitous eVect that inXuences human judgment in a variety of domains and paradigms. Three studies examined whether anchoring eVects even occur, if anchor values are presented subliminally, outside of judges’ awareness. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate such subliminal anchoring e...

This article investigates effects of anchoring in age estimation and estimation of quantities, two tasks which to different extents are based on visual stimuli. The results are compared to anchoring in answers to classic general knowledge questions that rely on semantic knowledge. Cognitive load was manipulated to explore possible differences between domains. Effects of source credibility, mani...

Anchoring effects are robust, varied and can be consequential. Researchers have provided a variety of alternative explanations for these effects. More recently, it has become apparent that anchoring effects might be produced by a variety of different processes, either acting simultaneously, or else individually in distinct situations. An unresolved issue is whether anchoring, aside from simple ...

The biasing influence of anchors on numerical estimates is well established, but the relationship between knowledge level and the susceptibility to anchoring effects is less clear. In two studies, we addressed the potential mitigating effects of having knowledge in a domain on vulnerability to anchoring effects in that domain. Of critical interest was a distinction between two forms of knowledg...

We formalize the biased activation theory of anchoring using a bidirectional associative memory network. Anchors determine the starting state of this network. As the network settles, we show that the nodes representing numerical responses activate and deactivate consecutively, generating sequential adjustment. By demonstrating that anchoring as adjustment emerges naturally from the dynamics of ...

Transport, translation, and anchoring of osk mRNA and proteins are essential for posterior patterning of Drosophila embryos. Here we show that Homer and Bifocal act redundantly to promote posterior anchoring of the osk gene products. Disruption of actin microfilaments, which causes delocalization of Bifocal but not Homer from the oocyte cortex, severely disrupts anchoring of osk gene products o...