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Cognition Module navigation.
Module Introduction
Lesson Goals
Information Procesing
Attention
Memory
Decision Making
Heuristics
Representativeness
Availability
Workload
Module Summary
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Cognition > Heuristics > Availability - 4 of 4
 
 


Availability Heuristic Examples (cont'd)

Would you guess that you have a higher chance of being struck by lightning or winning the lottery? It is difficult for most people to recall hearing of many people being struck by lightning. Yet, it may be easy to recall hearing of someone winning a lottery. What do you think your probability is for:

Being killed by lightning in a year?
Winning the lottery in a month?
Approximate Odds: 4 : 10,000,000
Approximate Odds: 4 : 10,000,000

Again, this example also illustrates how sometimes heuristics may fail us in making decisions. However, in general, heuristics provide us with good shortcuts for making decisions and therefore save us time for making further decisions.

  
 

 

  
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