The last time Nancy's remote control stopped working, she changed the batteries, and then it worked fine. It stopped working again, so she

changed the batteries again without noticing that a book was obstructing the sensor of her TV. What type of obstacle to problem solving is this?

A

functional fixedness

B. mental set

C. misleading information

OD. conformation bias

D. conformation bias

Explanation:

Confirmation bias occurs when an individual has a tendency to interpret current situations based on information from past situations. This type of bias causes an error of inductive reasoning, causing people not to interpret the situation as a whole, but in a selective and deficient way.

An example of this can be seen in the question above, where Nancy's TV control was not working. She changed the batteries in the control and it went back to work. When the control stopped working again, Nancy did not assess the situation as a whole, but interpreted it based on the past situation, when the batteries stopped working. So Nancy quickly changed the batteries in the control, not seeing that there was a book covering the TV sensor and preventing the TV and control from syncing.