Last in, first out

<![CDATA[news @ nature.com – Compete last, finish first – From song contests to figure-skating, the order of contestants biases decisions. :

In certain contests, candidates who take their turn at the end of a sequence are consistently ranked higher than those at the beginning.

So says a researcher who has evaluated the judging of music competitions and figure-skating contests. The bias is evident regardless of whether the judges score each contestant immediately, or rank them all at the end.

So much for early mover advantage….]]>