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CLAIM-315: In comparative anchoring tasks, considering an anchor shifts the later numerical estimate without adding evidence about the target, and the shift is carried by anchor-consistent knowledge made more accessible; the shift is established, the accessibility step is inferred and has not been measured

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Properties8
StatusProposed
Rolethesis
Warrantempirical
Tagscognition
Linepragmatic-transport
Bears onQUESTION-109 — When does cue-dependent retrieval make bounded reasoning better, and when does it produce anchoring, path dependence or entrenchment?
GroundsTHEORY-337 — In the comparative-question paradigm, judging whether a quantity is higher or lower than a high or low anchor pulls the later estimate of it toward the anchor, with large effects in five preregistered experiments of 128 people each, lasting through dozens of intervening word-recognition trials, THEORY-335 — Selective accessibility, the account that comparing a target with a plausible anchor makes anchor-consistent knowledge more accessible and that this knowledge carries anchoring, fits the moderations of the effect by applicability, representativeness and plausibility that Strack and Mussweiler found, but its accessibility step is inferred, not measured: Harris et al.'s repetition of the recognition test of it, four times by lexical decision and once by continuous identification, found nothing in five preregistered experiments, with tasks that also missed direct picture priming
SupportsCLAIM-298 — A frame can change a judgement by changing which of an interpreter's stored distinctions are reachable, without supplying any evidence about what is being judged

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The claim

This is the psychological form CLAIM-298 cited, stated on its own so that its warrant can be. In the comparative-question paradigm, judging whether a quantity is higher or lower than an anchor pulls the later estimate toward the anchor (THEORY-337). The anchor is uninformative by design, so the shift adds no evidence about the target. The selective-accessibility account holds that the comparison makes anchor-consistent knowledge more accessible and that this knowledge carries the shift (THEORY-335).

The two parts have different standing. The shift is shown in five preregistered experiments. The accessibility step is inferred from how the effect varies with applicability, representativeness and plausibility; its most direct test found nothing, with a task that also missed direct priming, so the test failed rather than the account.

What it does not say

  • Anything about communication in general. That extension is CLAIM-298’s, and it is interpretive.
  • That accessibility fixes the direction of the judgement. The account itself lets the same accessible knowledge produce contrast.
  • That all anchoring runs through accessibility. Insufficient adjustment and response effects are rival or additional pathways.

Note of 2026-10-29: what holds it back

Its readings are held, but its second clause asserts what THEORY-335 says is not shown: that anchor-consistent knowledge made more accessible carries the shift. No design with a retrieval measure first shown sensitive to direct priming has found that accessibility difference, or tied it to the size of the shift (QUESTION-323).

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