On the reality of cognitive illusions.

1996/01/01 by Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky · 1,347 citations
Decision Sciences · Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognition #Cognitive bias #Cognitive psychology #Cognitive science #Computer science #Confirmation bias #Debiasing #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Epistemology #Heuristics #Illusion #Judgement #Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies #Philosophy #Psychology #Psychology of Social Influence #Social psychology

paper · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.103.3.582

published in Psychological Review 103(3), 582-591 (American Psychological Association)

openalex publication_date 1996/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

The study of heuristics and biases in judgement has been criticized in several publications by G. Gigerenzer, who argues that "biases are not biases" and "heuristics are meant to explain what does not exist" (1991, p. 102). The article responds to Gigerenzer's critique and shows that it misrepresents the authors' theoretical position and ignores critical evidence. Contrary to Gigerenzer's central empirical claim, judgments of frequency--not only subjective probabilities--are susceptible to large and systematic biases. A postscript responds to Gigerenzer's (1996) reply.

Citations

• On the psychology of prediction.
• Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability
• The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences
• Probabilistic mental models: A Brunswikian theory of confidence.

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• Toward a synthesis of cognitive biases: How noisy information processing can bias human decision making.
• Surprisingly Rational: Probability theory plus noise explains biases in judgment
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