Which zero bisection method locates?

Question

This regarding an exercise from the Numerical Analysis book by Conte and de Boor. The question is the following.

If $a$ and $b$ are such that $f(a)f(b)<0$ and if $f$ has more than one zero in $(a,b)$, which zero the bisection method will locate?

I am not getting any clue in solving this problem. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

This nice paper addresses precisely this question:

George Corliss, "Which root does the bisection algorithm find?", SIAM Review, 19 (2): 325–327 (1977), doi:10.1137/1019044

It says that there is zero probability of finding even-numbered roots and equal probability of finding odd-numbered roots.