The Availability Heuristic

What has been corrected on this page?

Every accepted correction to this page is recorded with the exact change, so readers can see how the page improved over time.

1. 12 July 2026 · corrected by Emir Baycan

   2004 Psychological Science paper covered only the last three months of 2001 (~350); the ~1,595 full-year figure is from Gigerenzer's later 2006 analysis

   What the page claimed

   Gigerenzer estimated that American road fatalities increased by approximately 1,595 deaths in the twelve months following September 11, 2001. This stale figure was still present in the FAQ field's answer to 'What happened to road fatalities after 9/11?', even though the body text had already been corrected.

   What was corrected

   Gigerenzer estimated that American road fatalities increased by approximately 350 additional deaths in the three months following September 11, 2001. Body text was already correctly fixed. Found and fixed the same stale fabrication in the FAQ JSON-LD field, which still said 'approximately 1,595 additional road deaths in the 12 months following the attacks' - updated to match the corrected body text (350 deaths, three months) and re-encoded using the same operation sequence.

   Why: The body text correction had landed, but the FAQ field (a separate JSON-LD schema field) still contained the original unverified '1,595 deaths / twelve months' claim in its 9/11 road-fatality answer. Fixed the FAQ entry to match the corrected body text figure.

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