If you polled some friends from Edmonton, who read the local news on a regular basis, about the number of murders in their city, and you poll friends in other areas of the country about the number of murders in the entire province of Alberta, you'd likely find that the average number of murders estimated for Edmonton is more than for the entire province. This impossible finding is best explained by the

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This phenomenon is best explained by the availability heuristic, which suggests that people estimate the probability of an event based on how easily examples of the event come to mind. Friends in Edmonton, being regularly exposed to local news about murders in their city, would likely recall these incidents more easily and thus overestimate the frequency of such events compared to friends in other areas who might not hear about these specific incidents as often.

If You Polled Some Friends from Edmonton, Who Read the Local