Environments That Make Us Smart: Ecological Rationality |
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Authors: | Peter M Todd Gerd Gigerenzer |
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Institution: | Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany, and;Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACT— Traditional views of rationality posit general-purpose decision mechanisms based on logic or optimization. The study of ecological rationality focuses on uncovering the "adaptive toolbox" of domain-specific simple heuristics that real, computationally bounded minds employ, and explaining how these heuristics produce accurate decisions by exploiting the structures of information in the environments in which they are applied. Knowing when and how people use particular heuristics can facilitate the shaping of environments to engender better decisions. |
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Keywords: | ecological rationality decision making adaptive toolbox simple heuristics environment structure bounded rationality |
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