COGNlTTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 5, 207-232 (1973)

Availability: A Heuristic for Judging

Frequency and Probability122

AMOS TVERSKY AND DANIEL KAHNEMAN

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Oregon Research Institute

This paper explores a judgmental heuristic in which a person evaluates

the frequency of classes or the probability of events by availability, i.e.,
by the ease with which relevant instances come to mind. In general, avail-
ability is correlated with ecological frequency, but it is also affected by
other factors. Consequently, the reliance on the availability heuristic leads
to systematic biases. Such biases are demonstrated in the judged frequency
of classes of words, of combinatorial outcomes, and of repeated events. The
phenomenon of illusory correlation is explained as an availability bias. The
effects of the availability of incidents and scenarios on subjective prob-
ability are discussed.

I. INTRODUCTION
Much recent research has been concerned with the validity and con-
sistency of frequency and probability judgments. Little is known, how-
ever, about the psychological mechanisms by which people evaluate the
frequency of classes or the likelihood of events.
We propose that when faced with the difficult task of judging prob-
ability or frequency, people employ a limited number of heuristics which
reduce these judgments to simpler ones. Elsewhere we have analyzed
in detail one such heuristic-representativeness. By this heuristic, an
event is judged probable to the extent that it represents the essential
features of its parent population or generating process. Evidence for rep-
resentativeness was obtained in several studies. For example, a large
majority of naive respondents believe that the sequence of coin tosses
HTTHTH is more probable than either HHHHTH or HHHTTT, al-

’ Address: Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem,

Israel.
“This work was supported by NSF grant GB-6782, by a grant from the Central
Research Fund of the Hebrew University, by grant MH 12972 from the National
Institute of Mental Health and Grants 5 SO1 RR 05612-03 and RR 05612-04 from
the National Institute of Health to the Oregon Research Institute.
We thank Maya Bar-Hillel, Ruth Beyth, Sundra Gregory, and Richard Klein-
knecht for their help in the collection of the data, and Douglas Hintzman and Paul
Slavic for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.
207
Copyright @ 1973 by Academic Press, Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
208 TVJZRSKY AND KAHNEMAN

though all tlrree sequences, of course, are equally likely. The sequence
which is judged most probable best represents both the population pro-
portion (%) and the randomness of the process (Kahneman & Tversky,
1972). Similarly, both naive and sophisticated subjects evaluate the
likelihood that an individual will engage in an occupation by the degree
to which he appears representative of the stereotype of that occupation
(Kahneman & Tversky, 1973). Major biases of representativeness have
also been found in the judgments of experienced psychologists concern-
ing the statistics of research (Tversky & Kahneman, 1971).
When judging the probability of an event by representativeness, one
compares the essential features of the event to those of the structure from
which it originates. In this manner, one estimates probability by assess-
ing similarity or connotative distance. Alternatively, one may estimate
probability by assessing availability, or associative distance. Life-long
experience has taught us that instances of large classes are recalled better
and faster than instances of less frequent classes, that likely occurrences
are easier to imagine than unlikely ones, and that associative connections
are strengthened when two events frequently co-occur. Thus, a person
could estimate the numerosity of a class, the likelihood of an event, or
the frequency of co-occurrences by assessing the ease with which the
relevant mental operation of retrieval, construction, or association can
be carried out.
For example, one may assess the divorce rate in a given community by
recalling divorces among one’s acquaintances; one may evaluate the
probability that a politician will lose an election by considering various
ways in which he may lose support; and one may estimate the probability
that a violent person will “see” beasts of prey in a Rorschach card by
assessing the strength of association between violence and beasts of prey.
In all these cases, the estimation of the frequency of a class or the prob-
ability of an event is mediated by an assessment of availability., A person
is said to employ the availability heuristic whenever he estimates fre-
quency or probability by the ease with which instances or associations
could be brought to mind. To assess availability it is not necessary to
perform the actual operations of retrieval or construction. It suffices to
assess the ease with which these operations could be performed, much
as the difficulty of a puzzle or mathematical problem can be assessed
without considering specific solutions.
That associative bonds are strengthened by repetition is perhaps the
oldest law of memory known to man. The availability heuristic exploits
3The present use of the term “availability” does not coincide with some usagesof
this term in the verbal learning literature (see, e.g., Horowitz, Norman, & Day, 1966;
Tulving & Pearlstone, 1966).
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 209

the inverse form of this law, that is, it uses strength of association as a
basis for the judgment of frequency. In this theory, availability is a
mediating variable, rather than a dependent variable as is typically the
case in the study of memory. Availability is an ecologically valid clue for
the judgment of frequency because, in general, frequent events are easier
to recall or imagine than infrequent ones. However, availability is also
affected by various factors which are unrelated to actual frequency. If
the availability heuristic is applied, then such factors will affect the
perceived frequency of classes and the subjective probability of events.
Consequently, the use of the availability heuristic leads to systematic
biases.
This paper explores the availability heuristic in a series of ten studies.-l
We first demonstrate that people can assess availability with reasonable
speed and accuracy (Section II). Next, we show that the judged fre-
quency of classes is biased by the availability of their instances for con-
struction (Section III), and retrieval (Section IV). The experimental
studies of this paper are concerned with judgments of frequencies, or of
probabilities that can be readily reduced to relative frequencies. The
effects of availability on the judged probabilities of essentially unique
events (which cannot be reduced to relative frequencies) are discussed
in the fifth and final section,

II. ASSESSMENTS OF AVAILABILITY

Study 1: Construction
The subjects (N = 42) were presented with a series of word-construc-
tion problems. Each problem consisted of a 3 X 3 matrix containing nine
letters from which words of three letters or more were to be constructed.
In the training phase of the study, six problems were presented to all
subjects. For each problem, they were given 7 set to estimate the number
of words which they believed they could produce in 2 min. Following
each estimate, they were given two minutes to write down (on numbered
lines) as many words as they could construct from the letters in the
matrix. Data from the training phase were discarded. In the test phase,
the construction and estimation tasks were separated. Each subject esti-
mated for eight problems the number of words which he believed he

’ Approximately I500 subjectsparticipated in these studies. Unless otherwise speci-

fied, the studies were conducted in groups of 20-40 subjects. Subjects in Studies
I, 2, 3, 9 and 10 were recruited by advertisements in the student newspaper at the
University of Oregon. Subjects in Study 8 were similarly recruited at Stanford Uni-
versity. Subjects in Studies 5, 6 and 7 were students in the 10th and 11 grades of
several college-preparatory high schools in Israel.
210 TVERSKY AND KAHNEMAN

could produce in 2 min. For eight other problems, he constructed words

without prior estimation. Estimation and construction problems were
alternated. Two parallel booklets were used, so that for each problem
half the subjects estimated and half the subjects constructed words.
Results. The mean number of words produced varied from 1.3 (for
XUZONLCJM) to 22.4 (for TAPCERHOB), with a grand mean of 11.9.
The mean number estimated varied from 4.9 to 16.0 (for the same two
problems), with a grand mean of 10.3. The product-moment correlation
between estimation and production, over the sixteen problems, was 0.96.

Study 2: Retrieval
The design and procedure were identical to Study 1, except for the
nature of the task. Here, each problem consisted of a category, e.g.,
fl0u~r.s or Russian novelists, whose instances were to be recalled. The
subjects (N = 28) were given 7 set to estimate the number of instances
they could retrieve in 2 min, or two minutes to actually retrieve the in-
stances. As in Study 1, the production and estimation tasks were com-
bined in the training phase and alternated in the test phase.
Results. The mean number of instances produced varied from 4.1 (city
names beginning with F) to 23.7 (four-legged animals), with a grand
mean of 11.7. The mean number estimated varied from 6.7 to 18.7 (for
the same two categories), with a grand mean of 10.8. The product-
moment correlation between production and estimation over the 16
categories was 0.93.

Discussion
In the above studies, the availability of instances could be measured
by the total number of instances retrieved or constructed in any given
problem.5 The studies show that people can assess availability quickly
and accurately. How are such assessments carried out? One plausible
mechanism is suggested by the work of Bousfield and Sedgewick ( 1944),
who showed that cumulative retrieval of instances is a negatively ac-
celerated exponential function of time. The subject could, therefore, use
the number of instances retrieved in a short period to estimate the number
of instances that could be retrieved in a much longer period of time.
Alternatively, the subject may assess availability without explicitly re-

‘Word-construction problems can also be viewed as retrieval problems because

the response-words are stored in memory. In the present paper we speak of retrieval
when the subject recalls instances from a natural category, as in Studies 2 and 8. we
speak of construction when the subject generates exemplars according to a specified
rule, as in Studies 1 and 4.
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 211

trieving or constructing any instances at all. Hart ( 1967), for example,

has shown that people can accurately assess their ability to recognize
items that they cannot recall in a test of paired-associate memory.
III. AVAILABILITY FOR CONSTRUCTION
We turn now to a series of problems in which the subject is given a
rule for the construction of instances and is asked to estimate their total
(or relative) frequency. In these problems-as in most estimation prob-
lems-the subject cannot construct and enumerate all instances. Instead,
we propose, he attempts to construct some instances and judges overall
frequency by availability, that is, by an assessment of the ease with which
instances could be brought to mind. As a consequence, classes whose
instances are easy to construct or imagine will be perceived as more
frequent than classes of the same size whose instances are less available.
This prediction is tested in the judgment of word frequency, and in the
estimation of several combinatorial expressions.

Study 3: Judgment of Word Frequency

Suppose you sample a word at random from an English text. Is it more
likely that the word starts with a K, or that K is its third letter? Accord-
ing to our thesis, people answer such a question by comparing the avail-
ability of the two categories, i.e., by assessing the ease with which in-
stances of the two categories come to mind. It is certainly easier to
think of words that start with a K than of words where K is in the third
position. If the judgment of frequency is mediated by assessed avail-
ability, then words that start with K should be judged more frequent. In
fact, a typical text contains twice as many words in which K is in the
third position than words that start with K.
According to the extensive word-count of Mayzner and Tresselt ( 1965),
there are altogether eight consonants that appear more frequently in
the third than in the first position. Of these, two consonants (X and Z)
are relatively rare, and another (D) is more frequent in the third position
only in three-letter words. The remaining five consonants (K,L,N,R,V)
were selected for investigation.
The subjects were given the following instructions:

“The frequency of appearance of letters in the English lan-

guage was studied. A typical text was selected, and the relative
frequency with which various letters of the alphabet appeared
in the first and third positions in words was recorded. Words of
less than three letters were excluded from the count.
212 TVERSKY AND KAHNJSMAN

You will be given several letters of the alphabet, and you will
be asked to judge whether these letters appear more often in the
first or in the third position, and to estimate the ratio of the
frequency with which they appear in these positions.”

A typical problem read as follows:

“Consider the letter R.

- the first position?
Is R more likely to appear in
- the third position?
(check one)

My estimate for the ratio of these two values is -: 1.”

Subjects were instructed to estimate the ratio of the larger to the

smaller class. For half the subjects, the ordering of the two positions
in the question was reversed. In addition, three different orderings of
the five letters were employed.
Results. Among the 152 subjects, 105 judged the first position to be
more likely for a majority of the letters, and 47 judged the third position
to be more likely for a majority of the letters. The bias favoring the first
position is highly significant ( p < 691, by sign test), Moreover, each of
the five letters was judged by a majority of subjects to be more frequent
in the first than in the third position, The median estimated ratio was
2:1 for each of the five letters. These results were obtained despite
the fact that all letters were more frequent in the third position.
In other studies we found the same bias favoring the first position in
a within-subject design where each subject judged a single letter, and in
a between-subjects design, where the frequencies of letters in the first
and in the third positions were evaluated by different subjects. We also
observed that the introduction of payoffs for accuracy in the within-
subject design had no effect whatsoever. Since the same general pattern
of results was obtained in all these methods, only the findings obtained
by the simplest procedure are reported here.
A similar result was reported by Phillips (1966) in a study of Bayesian
inference. Six editors of a student publication estimated the probabilities
that various bigrams, sampled from their own writings, were drawn from
the beginning or from the end of words. An incidental effect observed
in that study was that all the editors shared a common bias to favor
the hypothesis that the bigrams had been drawn from the beginning
of words. For example, the editors erroneously judged words beginning
with re to be more frequent than words ending with re. The former, of
course, are more available than the latter.
 INFORMATION AVAJLABILTTY AND JUDGMENT 213

Study 4: Permutations
“Consider the two structures, A and B, which are displayed below.

(A) t B)
x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x
x x x x x x x x x x
x x
x x
x x
x x
x x
x x

A path in a structure is a line that connects an element in the

top row to an element in the bottom row, and passes through
one and only one element in each row.

In which of the two structures are there more paths?

How many paths do you think there are in each structure?”

Most readers will probably share with us the immediate impression that
there are more paths in A than in B. Our subjects agreed: 46 of 54 re-
spondents saw more paths in A than in B (p < 601, by sign test). The
median estimates were 40 paths in A and I8 in B. In fact, the number
of paths is the same in both structures, for S3 = 2g = 512.
Why do people see more paths in A than in B? We suggest that this
result reflects the differential availability of paths in the two structures.
There are several factors that make the paths in A more available than
those in B. First, the most immediately available paths are the columns
of the structures. There are 8 columns in A and only 2 in B. Second,
among the paths that cross columns, those of A are generally more dis-
tinctive and less confusable than those in B. Two paths in A share,
on the average, about ?i of their elements, whereas two paths in B share,
on the average, half of their elements. Finally, the paths in A are shorter
and hence easier to visualize than those in B.

Study 5: Combinations
Consider a group of ten people who have to form committees of r mem-
bers, where r is some number between 2 and 8. How many different
committees of T members can they form? The correct answer to this
10
problem is given by the binomial coefficient which reaches a
0 r
214 TVERSKY AND KAHNEMAN

maximum of 252 for T = 5. Clearly, the number of committees of T mem-

bers equals the number of committees of 10 - T members because any
elected group of, say, two members defines a unique nonelected group
of eight members.
According to our analysis of intuitive estimation, however, committees
of two members are more available than committees of eight. First,
the simplest scheme for constructing committees is a partition of the
group into disjoint subsets, Thus, one readily sees that there are as
many as five disjoint committees of two members, but not even two
disjoint committees of eight. Second, committees of eight members are
much less distinct, because of their overlapping membership; any two
committees of eight share at least six members. This analysis suggests
that small committees are more available than large committees. By the
availability hypothesis, therefore, the small committees should appear
more numerous.
Four groups of subjects (total N = 118) estimated the number of
possible committees of T members that can be formed from a set of ten
people. The different groups, respectively, evaluated the following values
of T: 2 and 6; 3 and 8; 4 and 7; 5.
Median estimates of the number of committees are shown in Fig. 1,
with the correct values. As predicted, the judged numerosity of commit-
tees decreases with their size.
The following alternative formulation of the same problem was de-
vised in order to test the generality of the findings:

zso-

200-

150 -

s ,oo-
s a-
Q ‘O-
c 60-
2 so-
g 40-

8 30-

20-

SIZE OF SET (0

FIG. 1. Correct values and median judgments (on a logarithmic scale) for the
Committees problem and for the Stops problem.
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 215

“In the drawing below, there are ten stations along a route be-
tween Start and Finish. Consider a bus that travels, stopping at
exactly r stations along this route.
~----- -----
START 1 [ FINISH

What is the number of different patterns of r stops that the bus

can make?”

10
The number of different patterns of T stops is again given by T .
0
Here too, of course, the number of patterns of two stops is the same as
the number of patterns of eight stops, because for any pattern of stops
there is a unique complementary pattern of non-stops. Yet, it appears
as though one has more degrees of freedom in constructing patterns
of two stops where “one has many stations to choose from” than in con-
structing patterns of eight stops where “one must stop at almost every
station.” Our previous analysis suggests that the former patterns are
more available: more such patterns are seen at first glance, they are
more distinctive, and they are easier to visualize.
Four new groups of subjects (total N = 178) answered this question,
forr=2, . . ., 8, following the same design as above. Median esti-
mates of the number of stops are shown in Fig. 1. As in the committee
problem, the apparent number of combinations generally decreases with
T, in accordance with the prediction from the availability hypothesis, and
in marked contrast to the correct values. Further, the estimates of the
number of combinations are very similar in the two problems. As in other
combinatorial problems, there is marked underestimation of all correct
values, with a single exception in the most available case, where T = 2.
The underestimation observed in Experiments 4 and 5 occurs, we
suggest, because people estimate combinatorial values by extrapolating
from an initial impression. What a person sees at a glance or in a few
steps of computation gives him an inadequate idea of the explosive rate
of growth of many combinatorial expressions. In such situations, extrapo-
lating from an initial impression leads to pronounced underestimation.
This is the case whether the basis for extrapolation is the initial avail-
ability of instances, as in the preceding two studies, or the output of an
initial computation, as in the following study.

Study 6: Extrapolation
We asked subjects to estimate, within 5 set, a numerical expression
that was written on the blackboard, One group of subjects (N = 87)
estimated the product 8 X 7 X 6 X 5 X 4 X 3 X 2 X 1, while another
group (N = 114) estimated the product 1 X 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x
216 TVERSKY AND KAHNEMAN

8. The median estimate for the descending sequence was 2,250. The
median estimate for the ascending sequence was 512. The difference
between the estimates is highly significant (p < ,001, by median test).
Both estimates fall very short of the correct answer, which is 40,320.
Both the underestimation of the correct value and the difference be-
tween the two estimates support the hypothesis that people estimate 81
by extrapolating from a partial computation. The factorial, like other
combinatorial expressions, is characterized by an ever-increasing rate
of growth. Consequently, a person who extrapolates from a partial com-
putation will grossly underestimate factorials. Because the results of the
first few steps of multiplication (performed from left to right) are
larger in the descending sequence than in the ascending sequence, the
former expression is judged larger than the latter. The evaluation of
the descending sequence may proceed as follows: “8 times 7 is 56 times
6 is already above 300, so we are dealing with a reasonably large num-
ber.” In evaluating the ascending sequence, on the other hand, one may
reason: “1 times 2 is 2 times 3 is 6 times 4 is 24, and this expression
is clearly not going very far. . . .-

Study 7: Binomial-Availability vs Representativeness

The final study of this section explores the role of availability in the
evaluation of binomial distributions and illustrates how the formulation
of a problem controls the choice of the heuristic that people adopt in
intuitive estimation.
The subjects (N = 73) were presented with these instructions:
“Consider the following diagram:
x x 0 x x x
x x x x 0 x
xoxxxx
x x x 0 x x
x x x x x 0
0 x x x x x
A path in this diagram is any descending line which starts at the
top row, ends at the bottom row, and passes through exactly one
symbo1 (X or 0) in each row.
What do you think is the percentage of paths which contain
6-X and no-0 2
5-X and 1-O 2

No-X and 6-O ‘K

 INFORMATION AVAILARILITY AND JUDGMENT 217

Note that these include all possible path-types and hence your
estimates should add to 160%”
The actual distribution of path-type is binomial with p = 516 and
n = 6. People, of course, can neither intuit the correct answers nor
enumerate all relevant instances. Instead, we propose, they glance at
the diagram and estimate the relative frequency of each path-type by the
ease with which individual paths of this type could be constructed.
Since, at every stage in the construction of a path (i.e., in each row of
the diagram) there are many more X’s than O’s, it is easier to con-
struct paths consisting of six X’s than paths consisting of, say, five X’s
and one 0, although the latter are, in fact, more numerous. Accordingly,
we predicted that subjects would erroneously judge paths of 6 X’s and
no 0 to be the most numerous.
Median estimates of the relative frequency of all path-types are pre-
sented in Fig. 2a, along with the correct binomial values. The results
confirm the hypothesis. Of the 73 subjects, 54 erroneously judged that
there are more paths consisting of six X’s and no 0 than paths consisting

40%

30X-

::
=Y 20%-
::
k

10x-

NUMBER OF X IN A SSMPLE OF 6

FIG. 2a. Correct values and median judgments: Path problem.

218 TVEXSKY AND KAHNEMAN

of five X’s and one 0, and only 13 regarded the latter as more numerous
than the former (p < .OOl, by sign test). The monotonicity of the sub-
jective distribution of path-types is apparently a general phenomenon.
We have obtained the same result with different values of p (4/5 and
5/6) and n (5, 6 and lo), and different representations of the population
proportions (e.g., four X’s and one 0 or eight X’s and two O’s in each
row of the path diagram).
To investigate further the robustness of this effect, the following ad-
ditional test was conducted, Fifty combinatorially naive undergraduates
from Stanford University were presented with the path problem. Here,
the subjects were not asked to estimate relative frequency but merely
to judge “whether there are more paths containing six X’s and no 0, or
more paths containing five X’s and one 0.” The subjects were run indi-
vidually, and they were promised a $1 bonus for a correct judgment. The
significant majority of subjects (38 of 50, p < .OOl, by sign test) again
selected the former outcome as more frequent. Erroneous intuitions, ap-
parently, are not easily rectified by the introduction of monetary payoffs.
We have proposed that when the binomial distribution is represented
as a path diagram, people judge the relative frequency of the various
outcomes by assessing the availability of individual paths of each type.
This mode of evaluation is suggested by the sequential character of the
definition of a path and by the pictorial representation of the problem.
Consider next an alternative formulation of the same problem.
“Six players participate in a card game. On each round of the
game, each player receives a single card drawn blindly from a
well-shuffled deck. In the deck, 5/6 of the cards are marked X
and the remaining l/6 are marked 0. In many rounds of the
game, what is the percentage of rounds in which
6 players receive X and no player receives 0 -!%
5 players receive X and 1 player receives 0 -%

No player receives X and 6 players receive 0 -%

Note that these include all the possible outcomes and hence
your estimates should add to 100%”
This card problem is formally identical to the path problem, but it is
intended to elicit a different mode of evaluation. In the path problem,
individual instances were emphasized by the display, and the population
proportion (i.e., the proportion of X’s in each row) was not made ex-
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 219

plicit. In the card problem, on the other hand, the population proportion
is explicitly stated and no mention is made of individual instances. Con-
sequently, we hypothesize that the outcomes in the card problem will be
evaluated by the degree to which they are representative of the com-
position of the deck rather than by the availability of individual in-
stances. In the card problem, the outcome “five X’s and one 0” is the
most representative, because it matches the population proportion (see
Kahneman & Tversky, 1972). H ence, by the representativeness heuristic,
this outcome should be judged more frequent than the outcome “six x’s
and no 0,” contrary to the observed pattern of judgments in the path
problem. The judgments of 71 of 82 subjects who answered the card
problem conformed to this prediction. In the path problem, only 13 of
73 subjects had judged these outcomes in the same way; the difference
between the two versions is highly significant (p < .OOl, by a x2 test).
Median estimates for the card problem are presented in Fig. 2b. The
contrast between Figs. 2a and 2b supports the hypothesis that different
representations of the same problem elicit different heuristics. Specifically,

. card data
407

303

=:
2
= 20%
v
z
n.

10%

NUMBER OF X IN 1 SAMPLE OF 6

FIG. 2b. Correct values and median judgments: Card problem.

220 TYERSKY AND KAHNEMAN

the frequency of a class is likely to be judged by availability if the in-

dividual instances are emphasized and by representativeness if generic
features are made salient.
IV. AVAILABILITY FOR RETRIEVAL
In this section we discuss several studies in which the subject is first
exposed to a message (e.g., a list of names) and is later asked to judge
the frequency of items of a given type that were included in the message.
As in the problems studied in the previous section, the subject cannot
recall and count all instances. Instead, we propose, he attempts to recall
some instances and judges overall frequency by availability, i.e., by the
ease with which instances come to mind. As a consequence, classes whose
instances are readily recalled will be judged more numerous than classes
of the same size whose instances are less available. This prediction is
first tested in a study of the judged frequency of categories. Next, we
review previous evidence of availability effects on the judged frequency
of repetitions. Finally, the role of the availability heuristic in judgments
of the frequency of co-occurrences is discussed.

Study 8: Fame, Frequency, and Recall

The subjects were presented with a recorded list consisting of names
of known personalities of both sexes. After listening to the list, some
subjects judged whether it contained more names of men or of women,
others attempted to recall the names in the list. Some of the names in
the list were very famous (e.g., Richard Nixon, Elizabeth Taylor), others
were less famous (e.g., William Fulbright, Lana Turner), Famous names
are generally easier to recall. Hence, if frequency judgments are mediated
by assessed availability, then a class consisting of famous names should
be judged more numerous than a comparable class consisting of less
famous names.
Four lists of names were prepared, two lists of entertainers and two
lists of other public figures. Each list included 39 names recorded at a rate
of one name every 2 sec. Two of the lists (one of public figures and
one of entertainers) included 19 names of famous women and 20 names
of less famous men. The two other lists consisted of 19 names of famous
men and 20 names of less famous women. Hence, fame and frequency
were inversely related in all lists. The first names of all personalities al-
ways permitted an unambiguous identification of sex.
The subjects were instructed to listen attentively to a recorded mes-
sage. Each of the four lists was presented to two groups. After listening
to the recording, subjects in one group were asked to write down as
many names as they could recall from the list. The subjects in the other
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 221

group were asked to judge whether the list contained more names of men
or of women.
Results. (a) Recall. On the average, subjects recalled 12.3 of the 19
famous names and 8.4 of the 20 less famous names. Of the 86 subjects in
the four recall groups, 57 recalled more famous than nonfamous names,
and only 13 recalled fewer famous than less famous names (p < .OOL
by sign test).
(b) Frequency. Among the 99 subjects who compared the frequency
of men and women in the lists, 80 erroneously judged the class consist-
ing of the more famous names to be more frequent (p < .OOl, by sign
test).

Frequency of Repetitions
The preceding study supported the notion that people judge the fre-
quency of a class by assessed availability, i.e., by the ease with which the
relevant instances come to mind. In that study, subjects judged the fre-
quency of classes which consisted of distinct instances, e.g., female enter-
tainers or male politicians. Most research on judged frequency, in con-
trast, has been concerned with the frequency of repetitions, e.g., the
number of times that a particular word was repeated in a list.
When the number of repetitions is relatively small, people may attempt
to estimate the frequency of repetitions by recalling specific occurrences.
There is evidence (see, e.g., Hintzman & Block, 1971) that subjects
retain some information about the specific occurrences of repeated items.
There are situations, however, in which occurrences cannot be retrieved,
e.g., when the total number of items is large, when their distinctiveness
is low, or when the retention interval is long. In these situations, subjects
may resort to a different method for judging frequency.
When an item is repeated several times in a list, the association be-
tween the item and the list is strengthened. Thus, a subject could use the
strength of this association as a clue to the frequency of the item. Hence,
one could judge the frequency of repetitions either by assessing the avail-
ability of specific occurrences or by a more global assessment of the
strength of the item-list association. As a consequence, factors which
either enhance the recallability of specific occurrences or strengthen the
association between item and list should increase the apparent frequency
of the item. This analysis of frequency judgments is closely related to
the theoretical treatments proposed by Hintzman and Block ( 1971) and
by Anderson and Bower ( 1972). A somewhat different analysis has been
offered by Underwood (1969a).
The general notion that factors which affect availability have a cor-
responding effect on the apparent frequency of repetitions has been
222 TVEXSKY AND KAHNEMAN

supported in several studies. For example, the occurrences of an item

are more likely to be stored and recalled as distinct units when they are
widely spaced. Indeed, Underwood (196913) showed that items are
judged more frequent under conditions of distributed rather than massed
practice, and Hintzman (1969) sh owed that the apparent frequency of
an item increases with the spacing between its repetitions in the list.
Another factor which enhances the memorability of repetitions is vocal re-
hearsal. Correspondingly, Hopkins, Boylan, and Lincoln (1972) showed
that items that were pronounced were perceived as more frequent than
items that were read silently.
According to the present analysis, the judgment of frequency is often
mediated by an assessment of item-list associations. In many situations,
however, the items to which the list is most strongly associated are also
the items that are most likely to be retrieved when the subject attempts
to recall the list. Hence, the recallability of items from a list provides an
indirect measure of the strength of the association from these items to
the list, As a consequence, there should be a positive correlation between
the recallability of items and their apparent frequency. Indeed, the stud-
ies of Leicht (1968) and Underwood, Zimmerman, and Freund (1971)
showed that, at any level of actual frequency, items that were better
recalled were judged more frequent.
In concluding the discussion of the apparent frequency of repetition,
it is important to emphasize that the availability heuristic is not the only
method by which frequency of repetition can be estimated. In some con-
texts, people may have access to a “frequency counter” (see Underwood,
1969a). In other contexts, when the number of repetitions is large (see,
e.g., Howell, 1970), frequency judgments may be mediated by an assess-
ment of rate of occurrence, or inferred from a schema of the relevant
structure. For example, in estimating the number of trials in which the
red light came on rather than the blue or the green, in a 1000~trial
probability-learning experiment, the subject probably infers the estimate
from his schema of the statistical structure of the sequence. Frequency
estimates obtained from studies of binary and multiple probability learn-
ing show that, in general, people are quite accurate in judging relative
frequencies of events (see Vlek, 1970, for a review). To the extent that
availability plays a role in these judgments, it is probably by affecting
the schema to which the subject refers in estimating frequency.
Frequency of Co-occurrence
Some recent research has been concerned with judgment of the fre-
quency with which pairs of items have occurred together. The strategies
employed to estimate the frequency of a single item can also be employed
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 223

to estimate the frequency of an item-pair. In addition, the repetition of a

pair strengthens the association between its members. The subject may,
therefore, use the strength of the association between the members of a
pair as a clue to its frequency.
An interesting bias in the judgment of the frequency of co-occurrence
has been reported by Chapman (1967) and Chapman and Chapman
(1967, 1969). In the initial study, Chapman used two sets of words, and
constructed a list in which each word in the first set was paired with each
word in the second set. All pairs were visually presented an equal num-
ber of times. The subjects were told in advance that they would be re-
quired to report how often each word was paired with each other word.
In spite of this warning, they made consistent errors in their subsequent
judgments of frequency. The frequency of the co-occurrence of related
words was overestimated, creating an illusory correlation between such
words. For example, Zion-tiger was incorrectly judged to have been
shown more often than lion-eggs, and bacon-eggs was judged more
frequent than bacon-tiger. A similar illusory correlation was found be-
tween unusually long words. For example, blossom-notebook was er-
roneously judged to have been shown more often than boat-notebook.
Chapman attributed this result to the distinctiveness of the long words.
In subsequent studies, Chapman and Chapman (1967, 1969) investi-
gated the significant implications of the phenomenon of illusory correla-
tion to impression formation and clinical judgment. They presented naive
judges with clinical test material and with clinical diagnoses for several
hypothetical patients. Later, the judges evaluated the frequency of co-
occurrence of various symptoms and diagnoses in the data to which they
had been exposed. Illusory correlation was again observed. The judges
markedly overestimated the co-occurrence of pairs that were judged to
be natural associates by an independent group of subjects. For example,
“suspiciousness” had been rated as calling to mind “eyes” more than any
other part of the body. Correspondingly, the judges greatly overestimated
the frequency of the co-occurrence of suspiciousness with peculiar draw-
ing of the eyes in the Draw-a-Person test. An ominous finding in the
Chapmans’ study was that naive judges erroneously “discovered” much
of the common but unvalidated clinical lore concerning the interpreta-
tion of the Draw-a-Person and the Rorschach tests. Furthermore, the
illusory correlation effect was extremely resistant to contradictory data.
It persisted even when the actual correlation between the associates was
negative. Finally, the illusory correlation effect prevented the judges
from detecting correlations that were in fact present in the test material
(see also Golding & Rorer, 1972).
Availability provides a natural explanation for illusory correlation.
224 TVERSKY AND KAHNEMAN

We propose that an assessment of the associative bond between two items

is one of the processes that mediate the judged frequency of their CO-
occurrence. The association between two items is strengthened when-
ever they co-occur. Thus, when a person finds that the association
between items is strong, he is likely to conclude that they have been fre-
quently paired in his recent experience. However, repetition is not the
only factor that affects associative strength. Factors other than repetition
which strengthen the association between the members of a pair will,
therefore, increase the apparent frequency of that pair. According to
this account, illusory correlation is due to the differential strength of
associative bonds. The strength of these bonds may reflect prior associa-
tion between the items or other factors, such as pair-distinctiveness,
which facilitate the formation of an association during learning. Thus, the
various sources of illusory correlation can all be explained by the opera-
tion of a single mechanism-the assessment of availability or associative
strength. The proposed account of the judgment of the frequency of CO-
occurrences is tested in the last two studies.

Study 9: Illusory Correlation in Word Pairs

This study essentially replicates Chapman’s ( 1967) original result and
establishes the relation between judgments of the frequency of pairs and
cued recall, i.e., the recall of the second word of the pair, called response,
given the first, called stimulus.
A set of twenty pairs of words was constructed. Ten of the pairs con-
sisted of highly related (HR) words, the other ten consisted of unrelated
(UR) words. In five of the HR pairs, stimulus and response were natural
associates: knife-fork, hand-foot, Go-tiger, table-chair, winter-summer.
(The first three pairs were taken from Chapman’s list.) In five other
pairs, stimulus and response were phonetically similar: gown-clown,
cake-fake, blade-blame, flight-fleet, spoon-spanner. The ten UR pairs
were obtained by replacing the stimulus word in each of the above ten
pairs, respectively, by the words: head, lamp, house, paper, dish, bread,
box, pencil, book, phone. Thus, the entire set of pairs was constructed
SO that each response word appeared with two stimulus words, one which
was highly related to it and one which was not. A message which in-
cluded these word-pairs was recorded on tape at a rate of one pair every
5 sec. Ten of the twenty pairs were repeated three times in the message
and the other ten pairs were repeated twice. Pairs that shared the same
response word (e.g., knife-fork, head-fork) were repeated the same
number of times. The order of the pairs was randomized. To minimize
the effects of primacy and recency, the same two filler pairs were re-
corded both at the beginning and at the end of the message.
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 225

All subjects (IV = 98) were instructed to listen attentively to the mes-
sage, Following the recording, one group of 30 subjects was asked for
cued recall: each subject was given a list of all twenty stimulus words
(in one of four random orders) and was asked to write the corresponding
response words. A second group of 68 subjects was asked for frequency
judgments: each subject was given a list of all twenty pairs (again, in
one of four random orders) and was asked to judge whether each of the
pairs had appeared twice or three times in the message.
Results. (a) Cued recall. For each subject, the number of response
words correctly recalled was counted, separately for the HR and the UR
pairs under each of the two repetition levels (i.e., 2 and 3). Table la
presents the mean probability of recall for each of the four conditions.
A 2 x 2 analysis of variance showed that subjects recalled significantly
more words from the HR pairs than from the UR pairs (t = 9.4, 29 df,
p < .OOl), and that they recalled significantly more words from the pairs
that had been repeated more often (t = 2.44, 29 df, p < .05). The in-
teraction between the two factors was not significant.
(b) Judgedf re quency. Table lb presents the mean judged frequency
of the HR and the UR pairs for the two levels of actual frequency. A
2 X 2 analysis of variance showed that the HR pairs were judged more
frequent than the UR pairs (t = 4.62, 67 df, p < .OOl), although they
were, in fact, equally frequent. The effect of actual frequency was also
significant (t = 7.71, 67 df, p < .OOl). Th e interaction between the two
factors was not.
Further analyses showed that the differences between HR and UR
pairs, in both cued recall and judged frequency, were significant sep-
arately for the natural associates and for the phonetically similar pairs.
Study 10: illusory Correlation in Personality Traits
Chapman’s original study, as well as Study 9, employed a correlational
design where each response was paired with more than one stimulus. Ac-

TABLE I
Xean Prob:thililp of I:ecall and hfenu Judged Frrqueucy

(a) Cued mxll (11) Jxtdged frequency

Relatedness lielatedness
Low High Low High
‘J .41 .85 n
Actuxl frequency ACtllal frcqwcy
2 .31 .7T 2
4
226 TVERSKY AND KAHNEMAN

cording to the present analysis, however, the illusory correlation effect is

due to differences among item pairs in the strength of the associative
bond between their members. Consequently, the same effect should also
occur in a noncorrelational design, where each response is paired with a
single stimulus, and vice versa, The present study tests this prediction.
In addition, it shows that people can assess the availability of associates,
i.e., the degree to which the response word is made available by the
stimulus word.
A set of sixteen pairs of personality traits was constructed. Eight of the
pairs- the highly related pairs-consisted of traits which tend to be asso-
ciated with each other. The other eight pairs-the unrelated pairs-con-
sisted of traits which are not generally associated with each other. The
highly related (HR) pairs were: kind-honest, poised-relaxed, pa-s-
sive-withdrawn, alert-witty, selfish-greedy, meek-silent, brutal-nasty,
healthy-active. The unrelated (UR) pairs were: nervous-gentle, lucky-
discreet, eager-careful, clever-prudent, humble-messy, nice-anxious,
casual-thrifty, clumsy-mature. In a pilot study designed to validate the
classification of the pairs, 36 subjects assessed, for each pair, the prob-
ability that a person who has the first trait of that pair also has the second
(e.g., the probability that an alert person is witty). The average esti-
mated probabilities for each of the HR pairs exceeded the average esti-
mates for all the UR pairs.
A message which included all pairs was recorded on tape at a rate of
one pair every 5 sec. Two HR and two UR pairs appeared in the list at
each of four levels of frequency, from a single occurrence to four occur-
rences. The order of the pairs in the message was randomized and five
filler pairs were recorded at the beginning and the end of the message.
All subjects were told to listen attentively to a recorded message. Fol-
lowing the recording, subjects were assigned one of three different tasks.
The subjects in the recall group (N = 62) were given a list consisting
of all 16 stimulus-traits and were asked to recall the response member
of each pair. The subjects in the assessed-recall group (N = 68) were
presented with the 16 trait-pairs and were asked to indicate, on a seven-
point scale, the likelihood that they would have been able to recall each
response-trait if they had been given the stimulus-trait, immediately after
hearing the list. The subjects in the judged-frequency group (N = 73)
were given a list of all the 16 trait-pairs and were asked to judge how
often each pair appeared in the message. Four lists with different orders
were employed for each of the three tasks.
Results. (a) Recall. The number of items that were correctly recalled
by each subject was recorded separately for the HR and the UR pairs.
On the average, subjects correctly completed 41% of the HR pairs, and
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 227

only 19% of the UR pairs, The difference is highly significant (t = 9.27,

61 df, p < .OOl).
(b) Assessed recall. The mean rating of assessed recall was computed
for each of the trait-pairs. The product-moment correlation, over the 16
pairs, between mean assessed recall and the proportion of correct re-
sponses in the recall group was 0.84. Apparently, people can assess the
recallability of associates with reasonable accuracy.
(c) Judged frequency. Figure 3 shows mean judged frequency as a
function of actual frequency, separately for the HR and the UR pairs.
The difference between the two curves is highly significant (t = 3.85,
72 df, p < 601).
Although judgments of frequency were generally accurate, a slight but
highly systematic bias favoring related pairs was present. The results
support the proposed account of judgment of frequency in terms of the
availability of associations, and demonstrate the presence of “illusory
correlation” in a non-correlational design.
V. RETRIEVAL OF OCCURRENCES AND CONSTRUCTION
OF SCENARIOS
In all the empirical studies that were discussed in this paper, there
existed an objective procedure for enumerating instances (e.g., words
that begin with K or paths in a diagram), and hence each of the prob-
lems had an objectively correct answer. This is not the case in many real-

0 HR pairs
l UR pairs

I I I
0 1 2 3 4

ACTUAL FREQUENCY

FIG. 3. Average judged frequency as a function of actual frequency for highly-

related (HR) and unrelated (UR) trait-pairs.
228 TVERSKY AND KAHNEIMAN

Iife situations where probabilities are judged. Each occurrence of an

economic recession, a successful medical operation, or a divorce, is es-
sentially unique, and its probability cannot be evaluated by a simple
tally of instances. Nevertheless, the availability heuristic may be applied
to evaluate the likelihood of such events.
In judging the likelihood that a particular couple will be divorced,
for example, one may scan one’s memory for similar couples which
this question brings to mind. Divorce will appear probable if divorces
are prevalent among the instances that are retrieved in this manner.
Alternatively, one may evaluate likelihood by attempting to construct
stories, or scenarios, that lead to a divorce. The plausibility of such
scenarios, or the ease with which they come to mind, can provide a basis
for the judgment of likelihood. In the present section, we discuss the role
of availability in such judgments, speculate about expected sources of
bias, and sketch some directions that further inquiry might follow.
We illustrate availability biases by considering an imaginary clinical
situation.6 A clinician who has heard a patient complain that he is tired
of life, and wonders whether that patient is likely to commit suicide may
well recall similar patients he has known. Sometimes only one relevant
instance comes to mind, perhaps because it is most memorable. Here,
subjective probability may depend primarily on the similarity between
that instance and the case under consideration, If the two are very sim-
ilar, then one expects that what has happened in the past will recur.
When several instances come to mind, they are probably weighted by
the degree to which they are similar, in essential features, to the prob-
lem at hand.
How are relevant instances selected? In scanning his past experience
does the clinician recall patients who resemble the present case, patients
who attempted suicide, or patients who resemble the present case and
attempted suicide? From an actuarial point of view, of course, the rele-
vant class is that of patients who are similar, in some respects, to the
present case, and the relevant statistic is the frequency of attempted sui-
cide in this class.
Memory search may follow other rules. Since attempted suicide is a
dramatic and salient event, suicidal patients are likely to be more mem-
orable and easier to recall than depressive patients who did not attempt
suicide. As a consequence, the clinician may recall suicidal patients he
has encountered and judge the likelihood of an attempted suicide by the
degree of resemblance between these cases and the present patient. This
‘This example was chosen because of its availability. We know of no reason to
believe that intuitive predictions of stockbrokers, sportscasters, political analysts or
research psychologists are less susceptible to biases.
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 229

approach leads to serious biases. The clinician who notes that nearly all
suicidal patients he can think of were severely depressed may conclude
that a patient is likely to commit suicide if he shows signs of severe de-
pression. Alternatively, the clinician may conclude that suicide is unlikely
if “this patient does not look like any suicide case I have met.” Such
reasoning ignores the fact that only a minority of depressed patients at-
tempt suicide and the possibility that the present patient may be quite
unlike any that the therapist has ever encountered.
Finally, a clinician might think only of patients who were both de-
pressed and suicidal, He would then evaluate the likelihood of suicide
by the ease with which such cases come to mind or by the degree to
which the present patient is representative of this class. This reasoning,
too, is subject to a serious flaw. The fact that there are many depressed
patients who attempted suicide does not say much about the probability
that a depressed patient will attempt suicide, yet this mode of evaluation is
not uncommon. Several studies (Jenkins & Ward, 1963; Smedslund, 1963;
Ward & Jenkins, 1965) showed that contingency between two binary
variables such as a symptom and a disease is judged by the frequency
with which they co-occur, with little or no regard for cases where either
the symptom or the disease was not present.
Some events are perceived as so unique that past history does not seem
relevant to the evaluation of their likelihood. In thinking of such events
we often construct scenarios, i.e., stories that lead from the present situa-
tion to the target event. The plausibility of the scenarios that come to
mind, or the difficulty of producing them, then serve as a clue to the
likelihood of the event. If no reasonable scenario comes to mind, the
event is deemed impossible or highly unlikely. If many scenarios come
to mind, or if the one scenario that is constructed is particularly com-
pelling, the event in question appears probable.
Many of the events whose likelihood people wish to evaluate depend on
several interrelated factors. Yet it is exceedingly difficult for the human
mind to apprehend sequences of variations of several interacting factors.
We suggest that in evaluating the probability of complex events only the
simplest and most available scenarios are likely to be considered. In par-
ticular, people will tend to produce scenarios in which many factors do
not vary at all, only the most obvious variations take place, and interact-
ing changes are rare. Because of the simplified nature of imagined
scenarios, the outcomes of computer simulations of interacting processes
are often counter-intuitive (Forrester, 1971). The tendency to consider
only relatively simple scenarios may have particularly salient effects in
situations of conflict. There, one’s own moods and plans are more avail-
able to one than those of the opponent. It is not easy to adopt the op-
230 TVEIRSKY AND KAHNEMAN

ponent’s view of the chessboard or of the battlefield, which may be why

the mediocre player discovers so many new possibilities when he switches
sides in a game. Consequently, the player may tend to regard his OP-
ponent’s strategy as relatively constant and independent of his own
moves. These considerations suggest that a player is susceptible to the
fuZZacy of initiative-a tendency to attribute less initiative and less imag-
ination to the opponent than to himself. This hypothesis is consistent
with a finding of attribution-research (Jones & Nisbett, 1971) that people
tend to view their own behavior as reflecting the changing demands of
their environment and others’ behavior as trait-dominated.
The production of a compelling scenario is likely to constrain future
thinking. There is much evidence showing that, once an uncertain situa-
tion has been perceived or interpreted in a particular fashion, it is quite
difficult to view it in any other way (see, e.g., Bruner & Potter, 1964).
Thus, the generation of a specific scenario may inhibit the emergence of
other scenarios, particularly those that lead to different outcomes.
Images of the future are shaped by the experience of the past. In his
monograph Hazard and choice perception in flood plain management,
Kates ( 1962) writes:
“A major limitation to human ability to use improved flood
hazard information is a basic reliance on experience. Men on
flood plains appear to be very much prisoners of their experi-
ence . . . Recently experienced floods appear to set an upper
bound to the size of loss with which managers believe they
ought to be concerned [p. 1401.”
Kates attributes much of the difficulty in achieving more efficient flood
control to the inability of individuals to imagine floods unlike any that
have occurred.
Perhaps the most obvious demonstration of availability in real life is
the impact of the fortuitous availability of incidents or scenarios. Many
readers must have experienced the temporary rise in the subjective prob-
ability of an accident after seeing a car overturned by the side of the
road. Similarly, many must have noticed an increase in the subjective
probability that an accident or malfunction will start a thermonuclear
war after seeing a movie in which such an occurrence was vividly por-
trayed. Continued preoccupation with an outcome may increase its avail-
ability, and hence its perceived likelihood. People are preoccupied with
highly desirable outcomes, such as winning the sweepstakes, or with
highly undesirable outcomes, such as an airplane crash. Consequently,
availability provides a mechanism by which occurrences of extreme
utility (or disutility) may appear more likely than they actually are.
 INFORMATION AVAILABILITY AND JUDGMENT 231

A Final Remark
lost important decisions men make are governed by beliefs concern-
ing the likelihood of unique events. The “true” probabilities of such
events are elusive, since they cannot be assessed objectively. The subjec-
tive probabilities that are assigned to unique events by knowledgeable
and consistent people have been accepted as all that can be said about
the likelihood of such events.
Although the “true” probability of a unique event is unknowable, the
reliance on heuristics such as availability or representativeness, biases
subjective probabilities in knowable ways. A psychological analysis of
the heuristics that a person uses in judging the probability of an event
may tell us whether his judgment is likely to be too high or too IOW.We
believe that such analyses could be used to reduce the prevalence of
errors in human judgment under uncertainty.
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(Accepted January 2, 1973)