A coroner in the UK investigated four cases of suicides among teenage boys in the UK within a short space of time. During the fourth inquest he commented that all the boys were owners of the well known computer game Call of Duty and recommended that use of the game by under 18s should be restricted. In response to the coroner’s recommendation it was suggested that the coroner was guilty of Base Rate Neglect in reaching his conclusion.
(a) Provide a suggestion of which base rate the coroner may be ignoring.
(b) Provide a brief description of base rate neglect.
(c) Suppose that in subsequent inquests into suicides of teenage boys the same coroner finds that some owned Call of Duty while others had never played the game. Assuming that the coroner is susceptible to Confirmation Bias, how would you expect his belief in the hypothesis that Call of Duty is a causal factor in teenage suicides to be affected by the subsequent evidence?