A term and concept borrowed directly from the psychology/behavioral economics literature, this is a type of Dyslogica where students are heavily influenced by information that is given before they are asked a question.
Example: Suppose a town has a population of 50,000. A student’s guess for the approximate population of their town would be vastly different in the following situations –
Case 1 – “New York City has a population of 10 million. What is our town’s population, approximately?” (Student will be very likely to guess a number like 1-2 million).
Case 2 – “Our neighboring town has a population of 3,000. What is our town’s population, approximately?” (Student will likely guess something close to this number).