Social-Cognitive Biases in Simulated Airline Luggage Screening

The study examined the role that social-cognitive biases play in decision making processes during airline luggage screening, Participants (n = 96) performed a computer simulated task where they tried to detect hidden weapons in 200 x-ray images of passenger luggage. Participants saw each luggage image for either two seconds (high time pressure) or six seconds (low time pressure). In addition, on each trial, participants observed the pictures of the "passenger" to whom the luggage purportedly belongs. The "pre-anchor group" answered questions about the passenger before the luggage image appears, the "post-anchor" group answered questions after the luggage appears, and the "no-anchor group" answered no questions. Participants then chose to either pass or stop the luggage, and rated their confidence in their decision. We hypothesized that participants in either the pre- and no-anchor groups and under high time pressure, would base their decisions more on the passenger who belonged to the luggage. While under low time pressure and for the no-anchor group participants were expected to base their decisions on the x-ray image itself rather than on the passenger. Results revealed that participants under high time pressure did indeed have lower hit rates and higher false alarms, when compared to participants under low time pressure. There were also significant differences between the pre-, no-, and post-anchor groups which were based on the gender and race of the passengers. Participants also had a higher false alarm rates in response to male passengers than female passengers.