{"schema_version":1,"experiment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_archetype_breadth150_20260804","research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp09_light_prior_art_20260804","cell_id":"anchoring_reset__accounting_auditing","search_lanes":{"direct_problem_and_intervention":{"queries":["audit materiality prior year anchor anchoring bias prior-year materiality","auditor debias anchoring independent estimate before anchor review audit judgment","audit materiality \"independent estimate\" prior year"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2"],"no_result_note":"No direct source describing the complete proposed prior-year materiality reset gate was found."},"synonyms_and_historical_terms":{"queries":["auditor anchoring bias numerical estimates materiality judgment study","anchor and adjustment heuristic continuing audit engagement","same as last year auditor professional judgment anchoring"],"source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2"],"no_result_note":null},"products_practices_and_standards":{"queries":["ISA 320 materiality planning audit benchmark prior period official","audit planning materiality software prior year materiality roll forward workpaper","Caseware materiality prior year current year planning materiality"],"source_ids":["SRC3","SRC4"],"no_result_note":null},"component_combination":{"queries":["auditor anchoring debiasing intervention numerical anchor independent judgment experiment","KPMG Professional Judgment Framework anchoring bias alternatives official PDF","audit materiality prior year roll forward methodology benchmark current year"],"source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"],"no_result_note":"Adjacent combinations were found, but none joined pre-exposure masking, an independent materiality range, post-reveal comparison, and a mandatory downstream dependency trace."}},"sources":[{"source_id":"SRC1","title":"Anchor and adjustment heuristic effect on audit judgement","publisher":"Emerald Publishing, Managerial Auditing Journal","url":"https://doi.org/10.1108/02686909510100850","source_type":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","claims_supported":["A practitioner experiment investigated anchoring and adjustment in continuing audit engagements.","Prior-year compliance-test information affected judgments about current-year error evidence, showing that inherited information can alter continuing-audit assessments.","The experiment concerned error-rate and risk judgments, not prior-year overall materiality or the proposed masking intervention."]},{"source_id":"SRC2","title":"Professional Judgment Resource","publisher":"Center for Audit Quality","url":"https://www.thecaq.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/professional-judgment-resource.pdf","source_type":"TRADE_PROFESSIONAL","claims_supported":["The resource defines anchoring as starting from an initial numerical value and adjusting insufficiently.","It warns that prior-engagement techniques and a same-as-last-year approach can constrain current-period alternatives.","Suggested responses include considering alternative perspectives, benchmarks and independent sources, involving other people, evaluating disconfirming evidence, and documenting alternatives and rationale.","The resource is expressly non-authoritative and does not prescribe temporary masking or a materiality-specific dependency trace."]},{"source_id":"SRC3","title":"ASA 320: Materiality in Planning and Performing an Audit","publisher":"Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards Board","url":"https://standards.auasb.gov.au/asa-320-apr-2022","source_type":"OFFICIAL_STANDARD","claims_supported":["Materiality is a professional judgment informed by users' needs and surrounding circumstances.","Overall materiality and performance materiality must be determined during planning, and those judgments determine risk assessment and further audit procedures.","Materiality must be revised when later information would have caused a different initial amount, with consequences for performance materiality and further procedures reconsidered.","The determined amounts, revisions, and factors considered must be documented; the standard does not prescribe an anchor-masking sequence."]},{"source_id":"SRC4","title":"Materiality","publisher":"Caseware International Inc.","url":"https://documentation.caseware.com/latest/Audit/en_us/Content/User_Planning/Materiality/c_Materiality.htm","source_type":"FIRST_PARTY_PRODUCT","claims_supported":["Caseware's materiality document sets overall, performance, adjusted-performance, and trivial-misstatement values.","Overall and performance materiality flow into the Financial Statement Areas worksheet and affect which areas are flagged as material.","When preliminary materiality or audit risk changes, the audit response and procedures should be updated.","The documented product workflow supports downstream propagation and revision but does not describe independent pre-exposure estimation or masking of prior-year values."]}],"problem_evidence":{"status":"PARTLY_SUPPORTED","finding":"The problem mechanism is visible: primary research shows prior-year information can affect continuing-audit judgments, professional guidance explicitly recognizes numerical anchoring and same-as-last-year reliance, and both the standard and product documentation show that materiality propagates into risk assessment, scoping, and procedures. However, the retained evidence does not directly demonstrate that exposure to prior-year overall materiality systematically biases current-year materiality amounts in practice.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"closest_prior_art":[{"name":"Center for Audit Quality Professional Judgment Resource","source_ids":["SRC2"],"overlap":"Recognizes auditor anchoring and same-as-last-year reliance and recommends alternatives, independent sources, benchmarks, different perspectives, disconfirming evidence, review, and documented rationale.","remaining_difference":"It does not prescribe withholding prior-year numeric materiality until a timestamped independent current-year range is recorded, followed by reveal-stage reconciliation and a dependency register for every derived planning artifact."},{"name":"ASA 320 materiality determination, revision, and documentation workflow","source_ids":["SRC3"],"overlap":"Requires current-context professional judgment, materiality and performance-materiality determination, revision when evidence changes, reconsideration of procedures, and documentation of amounts and factors.","remaining_difference":"It specifies required outcomes and authority but not an anchoring-control protocol, independent blinded estimate, comparison range, outsider escalation trigger, or systematic downstream anchor trace."},{"name":"Caseware materiality workflow","source_ids":["SRC4"],"overlap":"Operationalizes materiality values that flow into financial-statement-area identification and calls for procedures to be updated when materiality changes.","remaining_difference":"It exposes a conventional materiality document and downstream propagation but does not provide a masked first pass, independent estimate, structured inherited-reference challenge, or explicit dependency register."},{"name":"Presutti continuing-audit anchoring experiment","source_ids":["SRC1"],"overlap":"Directly studies how prior-year information interacts with current-year evidence in continuing-audit judgment.","remaining_difference":"It concerns compliance-test error-rate judgments and offers neither a prior-year materiality intervention nor the proposed masking, reconciliation, and downstream-tracing combination."}],"prior_art_disposition":"ADJACENT_PRIOR_ART","contrastive_claim_remaining":"Relative to an ordinary visible-prior-year workflow or a generic professional-judgment framework, temporarily masking prior-year numeric materiality until a qualified preparer records a current-year range, then reconciling the two references and tracing every derived planning artifact, will reduce inherited-number dependence without weakening evidence quality or bypassing the engagement partner's authority.","contrastive_claim_falsifier":"The claim is falsified if comparable masked and unmasked retrospective assessments show no meaningful difference in inherited-number dependence or downstream reconsideration; if masked reviewers reconstruct the old amount from remaining cues; if their ranges are less grounded in current evidence; or if an existing documented practice is shown to already require the same masking, pre-exposure range, reveal-stage reconciliation, and complete dependency trace.","gates":{"adequate_source_search":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"The bounded search covered direct phrasing, anchoring-and-adjustment and same-as-last-year terminology, official materiality requirements, first-party audit software, continuing-audit research, and combinations of independent estimation, alternative benchmarks, documentation, and downstream revision. Four opened sources span four publishers and include primary research, an official standard, professional guidance, and first-party product documentation.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"supported_problem":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"The exact prior-year-materiality effect remains unproven, but the converging evidence partly supports the proposed problem: continuing-audit judgments respond to inherited information, recognized auditor biases include anchoring and same-as-last-year reliance, and materiality controls downstream procedures.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"distinct_testable_claim":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"The retained prior art supplies several components but not the specific joined sequence of numeric masking, recorded independent range, controlled reveal and reconciliation, and mandatory downstream dependency tracing. Its incremental effect can be measured against visible-prior-year and generic-framework controls.","source_ids":["SRC1","SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"bounded_next_test":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"A single completed, de-identified engagement can support a non-decisional paired exercise with one masked packet and one ordinary-sequence packet. Predefined measures can compare distance from the inherited number, current-evidence support, uncertainty calibration, cue reconstruction, and downstream artifacts identified for reconsideration; no live audit change is required.","source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3","SRC4"]},"no_obvious_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"PASS","rationale":"No obvious stop applies to a firm-authorized retrospective tabletop exercise if official workpapers remain unchanged, confidential information stays access-controlled, qualified auditors apply governing methodology, and the engagement partner's statutory and professional authority is not delegated. Masking that removes information necessary for responsible judgment is a prespecified halt condition.","source_ids":["SRC2","SRC3"]}},"screen_survival":true,"world_novelty_boundary":"This light, bounded public-web screen found adjacent rather than identical prior art. It cannot establish world novelty, patentability, market size, expert acceptance, regulatory sufficiency, deployment feasibility, or realized audit value; proprietary firm methodologies, paywalled literature beyond accessible abstracts, patents, and non-indexed practices may contain closer matches."}