How can we open up the adaptive toolbox?

The adaptive toolbox is an evolutionarily inspired vision of the mechanisms of cognition, including simple decision nicking heuristics for specific pr oblem domains. In Simple heuristics we showed how different heuristics in t he adaptive toolbox could be constructed for different tasks, and how they could achieve ecological rationality (being accurate and robust) by exploit ing the structure of information in the environment. Our commentators have raised a number of important challenges for further extending the study of ecological rationality. Here we summarize those challenges and discuss how they, are being met along three theoretical and three empirical fronts: Whe re do heuristics come from? How are heuristics selected front the adaptive toolbox? How call environment structure be characterized? How can we study, which heuristics people use? What is the evidence for fast and frugal heur istics? And what criteria should be used to evaluate the performance of heu ristics?