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The extent to which humans and other species share heuristics depends on whether they face the same adaptive problems, environmental structures, and share core capacities. For example, “while the absence of language production from the adaptive toolbox of other animals means they cannot use name recognition to make inferences about their world, some animal species can use other capacities such as taste and smell recognition as input for the recognition heuristic”.
The extent to which humans and other species share heuristics depends on whether they face the same adaptive problems, environmental structures, and share core capacities. For example, “while the absence of language production from the adaptive toolbox of other animals means they cannot use name recognition to make inferences about their world, some animal species can use other capacities such as taste and smell recognition as input for the recognition heuristic”.
<ref>Todd & Gigerenzer (2012) 'What is ecological rationality?. In: Ecological Rationality'', Ed: P. M. Todd, G. Gigerenzer & the ABC Research Group. ,OUP. ISBN 0195315448 &nbsp; ISBN 978-0195315448</ref>
<ref>Todd & Gigerenzer (2012) 'What is ecological rationality?. In: Ecological Rationality'', Ed: P. M. Todd, G. Gigerenzer & the ABC Research Group. ,OUP. ISBN 0195315448 &nbsp; ISBN 978-0195315448</ref>

(Todd, P. M., & Gigerenzer, G. (2012). What is ecological rationality? In P. M. Todd, G. Gigerenzer, & the ABC Research Group, Ecological rationality: Intelligence in the world (pp. 3-30). New York: Oxford University Press




Revision as of 16:27, 30 October 2013

An organisms repertoire of specialized cognitive mechanisms including fast and frugal heuristics is referred to as the adaptive toolbox. The basic idea of the adaptive toolbox is that different domains of thought require different specialized tools instead of one universal tool - just as a mechanic can use different specialized tools for different tasks. These specialized tools (heuristics) are effective when they exploit the structure of the information in the environment, that is when they are ecologically rational [1]. They can handle situations of uncertainty involving limited time, computational resources and information. The content of the adaptive toolbox is shaped by evolution, learning, and culture for specific domains of inference and reasoning and changes across the life-span [2].


The adaptive toolbox includes:

1. a specific group of rules or heuristics rather than a general-purpose decision-making algorithm. These heuristics are fast, frugal, and computationally cheap rather than consistent, coherent, and general [1]. Classes and examples of heuristics that are likely to be in the adaptive toolbox of humans and some other animal species include: [1] [3]

a) recognition-based heuristics:
Examples: Recognition heuristic , fluency heuristic
b) one-reason decision-making:
Examples: Take-the-best, Fast and Frugal Trees
c) trade-off heuristics
Examples: 1/N, Tallying
d) satisficing heuristics
e) social heuristics:
Examples: tit for tat, imitate-the-majority, imitate-the-successful, default, social circle heuristic [4] , averaging, choosing [5]

2. the collection of building blocks (search rules, stopping rules, decision rules) for constructing heuristics,

3. core mental capacities that building blocks exploit (e.g. recognition memory, depth perception, frequency monitoring, object tracking, ability to imitate)


The extent to which humans and other species share heuristics depends on whether they face the same adaptive problems, environmental structures, and share core capacities. For example, “while the absence of language production from the adaptive toolbox of other animals means they cannot use name recognition to make inferences about their world, some animal species can use other capacities such as taste and smell recognition as input for the recognition heuristic”. [6]


How are heuristics selected for a given problem?

Alternative views

The concept of the adaptive toolbox departs from the view of that there is a single strategy that is universally superior as put forward by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz [7] proposed to replace all reasoning with a universal logical language, the Universal Characteristic. "The multitude of simple concepts constituting Leibniz’s alphabet of human thought were all to be operated on by a single general-purpose tool such as probability theory” [1] Today, a number of approaches exist that assume a universal strategy: for example rational choice theory, the Bayesian approach to cognition [8], Parallel constraint satisfaction processes (PCS) [9], sequential-sampling process models such as the adaptive spanner perspective [10] and decision field theory [11].


  1. ^ a b c d Todd, Peter; Gigerenzer, Gerd (2000), "Precis of Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23: 727–780 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1= and |2= (help)
  2. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.22.4.796, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi= 10.1037/0882-7974.22.4.796 instead.
  3. ^ Hertwig, Ralph; Herzog, Stefan (2009), "Fast and Frugal Heuristics: Tools of Social Rationality", Social Cognition, 27: 661–698 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1= and |2= (help)
  4. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.11.005, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi= 10.1016/j.tics.2004.11.005 instead.
  5. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi: 10.1037/a0015145, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi= 10.1037/a0015145 instead.
  6. ^ Todd & Gigerenzer (2012) 'What is ecological rationality?. In: Ecological Rationality, Ed: P. M. Todd, G. Gigerenzer & the ABC Research Group. ,OUP. ISBN 0195315448   ISBN 978-0195315448
  7. ^ Leibniz, Gottfried (1995) 'Toward a universal characteristic. In: Leibniz: Selections, Ed: P.P. Wiener. ,Scribner's Sons. ISBN 068412551X   ISBN 978-0684125510
  8. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi: 10.1017/S0140525X10003134, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi= 10.1017/S0140525X10003134 instead.
  9. ^ Glöckner, Andreas; Betsch, Tilmann (2008), "Modeling option and strategy choices with connectionist networks: Towards an integrative model of automatic and deliberate decision making", Judgment and Decision Making, 3: 215–228 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1= and |2= (help)
  10. ^ Attention: This template ({{cite doi}}) is deprecated. To cite the publication identified by doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.11.005, please use {{cite journal}} (if it was published in a bona fide academic journal, otherwise {{cite report}} with |doi= 10.1016/j.tics.2004.11.005 instead.
  11. ^ Busemeyer, Jerome; Townsend, James (1993), "Decision field theory: a dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment", Psychological Review, 100: 432–459 {{citation}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1= and |2= (help)
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