20May/09Off
Illustrating confirmation bias
I've always viewed the scene "sword in a field" from the movie The Messenger as a great example of illustrating confirmation bias. That's where we seek out supportive information that confirms the choice we’ve committed to. You can watch the scene here:
"You didn't see what was... you saw what you wanted to see."
How often as testers do we do that? We do it on the micro-level (as we try to explain specific bugs) and at the macro-level (when we think about "best practices"). For those who don't like YouTube as a source of learning, you might take a look at Automation Bias in Intelligent Time Critical Decision Support Systems by M.L. Cummings - but I promise you it's a good movie clip.
