Anchoring Effect

A cognitive bias in which people rely too heavily on an initial piece of information (the "anchor") when making subsequent decisions or judgements. In the context of digital accessibility, the anchoring effect has been documented in alt text authoring, where content authors who are shown pre-populated automatic alt text tend to write shorter, less detailed, and lower quality descriptions than those who start from a blank text field. The AI-generated text acts as a perceived quality standard, leading authors to make only minor edits rather than composing comprehensive descriptions. This finding has important implications for how platforms should present automatic alt text to content creators.