Confirmation Bias in Visual Search

In a series of experiments, we investigated the ubiquity of confirmation bias in cognition by measuring whether visual selection is prioritized for information that would confirm a proposition about a visual display. We show that attention is preferentially deployed to stimuli matching a target template, even when alternate strategies would reduce the number of searches necessary. We argue that this effect is an involuntary consequence of goal-directed processing, and show that it can be reduced when ample time is provided to prepare for search. These results support the notion that capacity-limited cognitive processes contribute to the biased selection of information that characterizes confirmation bias.