Cognitive bias overview A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment, whereby inferences of other people and situations may

be drawn in an illogical fashion.[1] Individuals create their own subjective social reality from their perception of the input.[2] An individuals construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behaviour in the social world.[3] Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.[4][5][6] Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context.[7] Furthermore, cognitive biases enable faster decisions when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics.[8] Other cognitive biases are a by-product of human processing limitations,[9] resulting from a lack of appropriate mental mechanisms (bounded rationality), or simply from a limited capacity for information processing.[10] A continually evolving list of cognitive biases has been identified over the last six decades of research on human judgment and decision-making in cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics. Cognitive biases are important to study because systematic errors highlight the psychological processes that underlie perception and judgement (Tversky & Kahneman,1999, p. 582). Moreover, Kahneman and Tversky (1996) argue cognitive biases have efficient practical implications for areas including clinical judgment.[11] Cognitive bias modification refers to the process of modifying cognitive biases in healthy people and also refers to a growing area of psychological (non-pharmaceutical) therapies for anxiety, depression and addiction called CBMT. Cognitive Bias Modification Therapy (CBMT) is subgroup of therapies within a growing area of psychological therapies based on modifying cognitive processes with or without accompanying medication and talk therapy, sometimes referred to as Applied Cognitive Processing Therapies (ACPT). Although Cognitive Bias Modification can refer to modifying cognitive processes in healthy individuals, CBMT is a growing area of evidencebased psychological therapy, in which cognitive processes are modified to relieve suffering[12][13] from serious Depression,[14] Anxiety,[15] and Addiction.[16] CBMT techniques are technology assisted therapies that are delivered via a computer with or without clinician support. CBM combines evidence and theory from the cognitive model of anxiety,[17] cognitive neuroscience[18] and attentional models.[19]