Venu comments on Priming and Contamination - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 October 2007 02:23AM

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Comment author: Venu 10 October 2007 03:28:08AM 3 points [-]

"Yet the most fearsome aspect of contamination is that it serves as yet another of the thousand faces of confirmation bias. Once an idea gets into your head, it primes information compatible with it - and thereby ensures its continued existence."

I am not sure I understand this. Once an idea gets into my head, my brain should prime all information *related* to the idea, not just information that is compatible with the idea. I am of course not denying the existence of confirmation bias, just trying to understand how priming in particular can promote it.