2002/01/01 by Daniel G. Goldstein, Gerd Gigerenzer · 1,352 citations
Arts and Humanities · Decision Sciences · Psychology · #Adaptation (eye) #Artificial intelligence #Complex Systems and Decision Making #Computer science #Counterintuitive #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Epistemology #Exploit #Heuristic #Heuristics #Machine learning #Philosophy and History of Science #Psychology #Social heuristics
paper · open access · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.109.1.75
published in Psychological Review 109(1), 75-90 (American Psychological Association)
openalex publication_date 2002/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
One view of heuristics is that they are imperfect versions of optimal statistical procedures considered too complicated for ordinary minds to carry out. In contrast, the authors consider heuristics to be adaptive strategies that evolved in tandem with fundamental psychological mechanisms. The recognition heuristic, arguably the most frugal of all heuristics, makes inferences from patterns of missing knowledge. This heuristic exploits a fundamental adaptation of many organisms: the vast, sensitive, and reliable capacity for recognition. The authors specify the conditions under which the recognition heuristic is successful and when it leads to the counterintuitive less-is-more effect in which less knowledge is better than more for making accurate inferences.