Page:CIAdeceptionMaximsFactFolklore 1980.pdf/18

C00036554 === Maxim 2: Limitations to Human Information === There are several limitations to human information processing that are exploitable in the design of deception schemes--among these, the law of small numbers and susceptability to conditioning.

Many barriers or limits to human information processing and decision making have been explored in the literature (see, Kirk (15) and Slovic (24) for useful surveys). Though a confusing, sometimes ambiguous and overlapping welter of names for various defects/characteristics of information processing (e.g., bounded rationality, perceptual readiness, premature closure, "groupthink", evoked set, "anchor and adjustment," and attribution theory to cite only a few examples) may serve to complicate a clear understanding of the matter, it is possible to extract several concepts which may explain an almost universal vulnerability to deception. First intuitive probabilistic judgments often show substantial biases. Equally, subjective standards for analyzing the adequacy of evidence are poor and sometimes ill-defined. "The law of small numbers" is the name given by Tversky and Kahneman (25) to describe one pathology in