REASONING THE FAST AND FRUGAL WAY - MODELS OF BOUNDED RATIONALITY

Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In contrast, many models of rational inference treat th e mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with unlimited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following H. Simon's notion of satisficing, t he authors have proposed a family of algorithms based on a simple psyc hological mechanism: one-reason decision making. These fast and frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical rationality: They neither look up nor integrate all information. By computer simulation, the authors held a competition between the satisficing ''Take The Bes t'' algorithm and various ''rational'' inference procedures(e.g., mult iple regression). The Take The Best algorithm matched or outperformed all competitors in inferential speed and accuracy. This result is an e xistence proof that cognitive mechanisms capable of successful perform ance in the real world do not need to satisfy the classical norms of r ational inference.