A heuristic technique (/hjrstk/; Greek: "", "find" or "discover"), sometimes called

simply a heuristic, is any approach to problem solving, learning, or discovery that employs a
practical methodology not guaranteed to be optimal or perfect, but sufficient for the immediate
goals. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be
used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts
that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of
thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, profiling, orcommon sense.
More precisely, heuristics are strategies using readily accessible, though loosely applicable,
information to control problem solving in human beings and machines.[1]
Contents
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1 Example

2 Psychology
2.1 Theorized psychological heuristics

2.1.1 Well known

2.1.2 Lesser known

3 Philosophy

4 Law

5 Stereotyping

6 See also

7 References

8 Further reading

Example[edit]
The most fundamental heuristic is trial and error, which can be used in everything from matching
nuts and bolts to finding the values of variables in algebra problems.
Here are a few other commonly used heuristics, from George Plya's 1945 book, How to Solve It:
[2]

If you are having difficulty understanding a problem, try drawing a picture.

If you can't find a solution, try assuming that you have a solution and seeing what you can
derive from that ("working backward").

If the problem is abstract, try examining a concrete example.

Try solving a more general problem first (the "inventor's paradox": the more ambitious
plan may have more chances of success).

Psychology[edit]
Main article: Heuristics in judgment and decision making
In psychology, heuristics are simple, efficient rules, learned or hard-coded by evolutionary
processes, that have been proposed to explain how people make decisions, come to judgments,
and solve problems typically when facing complex problems or incomplete information.
Researchers test if people use those rules with various methods. These rules work well under
most circumstances, but in certain cases lead to systematic errors or cognitive biases.[3]
Although much of the work of discovering heuristics in human decision-makers was done by the
Israeli psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman,[4] the concept was originally introduced
by Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon. Simon's original, primary object of research was problem
solving which showed that we operate within what he calls bounded rationality. He coined the
term "satisficing", which denotes the situation where people seek solutions or accept choices or
judgments that are "good enough" for their purposes, but could be optimized. [5]
Gerd Gigerenzer focused on the "fast and frugal" properties of heuristics, i.e., using heuristics in a
way that is principally accurate and thus eliminating most cognitive bias.[6] From one particular
batch of research, Gigerenzer and Wolfgang Gaissmaier found that both individuals and
organizations rely on heuristics in an adaptive way. They also found that ignoring part of the
information [with a decision], rather than weighing all the options, can actually lead to more
accurate decisions.[7][8]
Heuristics, through greater refinement and research, have begun to be applied to other theories,
or be explained by them. For example: the Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (CEST) also an
adaptive view of heuristic processing. CEST breaks down two systems that process information.
At some times, roughly speaking, individuals consider issues rationally, systematically, logically,
deliberately, effortfully, and verbally. On other occasions, individuals consider issues intuitively,
effortlessly, globally, and emotionally.[9] From this perspective, heuristics are part of a larger
experiential processing system that is often adaptive, but vulnerable to error in situations that
require logical analysis.[10]
In 2002, Daniel Kahneman and Shane Frederick proposed that cognitive heuristics work by a
process called attribute substitution, which happens without conscious awareness.[11] According to
this theory, when somebody makes a judgment (of a "target attribute") that is computationally
complex, a rather easier calculated "heuristic attribute" is substituted. In effect, a cognitively
difficult problem is dealt with by answering a rather simpler problem, without being aware of this
happening.[11] This theory explains cases where judgments fail to show regression toward the

mean.[12] Heuristics can be considered to reduce the complexity of clinical judgements in

Theorized psychological heuristics[edit]

Anchoring and adjustment Describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily
on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions. For example,
in a study done with children, the children were told to estimate the number of jellybeans in a
jar. Groups of children were given either a high or low "base" number (anchor). Children
estimated the number of jellybeans to be closer to the anchor number that they were given. [14]

Availability heuristic A mental shortcut that occurs when people make judgments about
the probability of events by the ease with which examples come to mind. For example, in a
1973 Tversky & Kahneman experiment, the majority of participants reported that there were
more words in the English language that start with the letter K than for which K was the third
letter. There are actually twice as many words in the English Language that have K as the
third letter than start with K, but words that start with K are much easier to recall and bring to
mind.[15]

Representativeness heuristic A mental shortcut used when making judgments about the
probability of an event under uncertainty. Or, judging a situation based on how similar the
prospects are to the prototypes the person holds in his or her mind. For example, in a 1982
Tversky and Kahneman experiment, participants were given a description of a woman named
Linda. Based on the description, it was likely that Linda was a feminist. 80-90% of
participants responded that it was also more likely for Linda to be a feminist and a bank teller
than just a bank teller. The likelihood of two events cannot be greater than that of either of the
two events individually. For this reason, the Representativeness Heuristic is exemplary of
the Conjunction fallacy.[15]

Nave diversification When asked to make several choices at once, people tend to
diversify more than when making the same type of decision sequentially.

Escalation of commitment Describes the phenomenon where people justify increased

Familiarity heuristic A mental shortcut applied to various situations in which individuals

Lesser known[edit]

Affect heuristic

Contagion heuristic

Effort heuristic

Fluency heuristic

Gaze heuristic

Peak-end rule

Recognition heuristic

Scarcity heuristic

Similarity heuristic

Simulation heuristic

Social proof

Take-the-best heuristic

Cognitive maps[edit]
Heuristics were also found to be used in the manipulation and creation of cognitive maps.
Cognitive maps are internal representations of our physical environment, particularly associated
with spatial relationships. These internal representations of our environment are used as memory
as a guide in our external environment. It was found that when questioned about maps imaging,
distancing, etc., people commonly made distortions to images. These distortions took shape in
the regularization of images (i.e., images are represented as more like pure abstract geometric
images, though they are irregular in shape).
There are several ways that humans form and use cognitive maps. Visual intake is a key part of
mapping. The first is by using landmarks. This is where a person uses a mental image to estimate
a relationship, usually distance, between two objects. Second, is route-road knowledge, and this
is generally developed after a person has performed a task and is relaying the information of that
task to another person. Third, is survey. A person estimates a distance based on a mental image
that, to them, might appear like an actual map. This image is generally created when a person's
brain begins making image corrections. These are presented in five ways: 1. Right-angle bias is
when a person straightens out an image, like mapping an intersection, and begins to give
everything 90-degree angles, when in reality it may not be that way. 2. Symmetry heuristic is

when people tend to think of shapes, or buildings, as being more symmetrical than they really
are. 3. Rotation heuristicis when a person takes a naturally (realistically) distorted image and
straightens it out for their mental image. 4. Alignment heuristic is similar to the previous, where
people align objects mentally to make them straighter than they really are. 5. Relative-position
heuristic: people do not accurately distance landmarks in their mental image based on how well
they remember that particular item.
Another method of creating cognitive maps is by means of auditory intake based on verbal
descriptions. Using the mapping based from a person's visual intake, another person can create
a mental image, such as directions to a certain location.[16]

Philosophy[edit]
"Heuristic device" is used when an entity X exists to enable understanding of, or knowledge
concerning, some other entity Y. A good example is a model that, as it is never identical with what
it models, is a heuristic device to enable understanding of what it models. Stories, metaphors,
etc., can also be termed heuristic in that sense. A classic example is the notion of utopia as
described in Plato's best-known work, The Republic. This means that the "ideal city" as depicted
in The Republicis not given as something to be pursued, or to present an orientation-point for
development; rather, it shows how things would have to be connected, and how one thing would
lead to another (often with highly problematic results), if one would opt for certain principles and
carry them through rigorously.
"Heuristic" is also often used as a noun to describe a rule-of-thumb, procedure, or method.
[17]

Philosophers of science have emphasized the importance of heuristics in creative thought and

constructing scientific theories.[18] (See The Logic of Scientific Discovery, and philosophers such
as Imre Lakatos,[19] Lindley Darden, William C. Wimsatt, and others.)

Law[edit]
In legal theory, especially in the theory of law and economics, heuristics are used in
the law when case-by-case analysis would be impractical, insofar as "practicality" is defined by
the interests of a governing body.[20]
The present securities regulation regime largely assumes that all investors act as perfectly,
rational persons. In truth, actual investors face cognitive limitations from biases, heuristics, and
framing effects.
For instance, in all states in the United States the legal drinking age for unsupervised persons is
21 years, because it is argued that people need to be mature enough to make decisions involving
the risks of alcohol consumption. However, assuming people mature at different rates, the
specific age of 21 would be too late for some and too early for others. In this case, the somewhat
arbitrary deadline is used because it is impossible or impractical to tell whether an individual is
sufficiently mature for society to trust them with that kind of responsibility. Some proposed
changes, however, have included the completion of an alcohol education course rather than the

attainment of 21 years of age as the criterion for legal alcohol possession. This would put youth
alcohol policy more on a case-by-case basis and less on a heuristic one, since the completion of
such a course would presumably be voluntary and not uniform across the population.
The same reasoning applies to patent law. Patents are justified on the grounds that inventors
must be protected so they have incentive to invent. It is therefore argued that it is in society's best
interest that inventors receive a temporary government-granted monopoly on their idea, so that
they can recoup investment costs and make economic profit for a limited period. In the United
States, the length of this temporary monopoly is 20 years from the date the application for patent
was filed, though the monopoly does not actually begin until the application has matured into a
patent. However, like the drinking-age problem above, the specific length of time would need to
be different for every product to be efficient. A 20-year term is used because it is difficult to tell
what the number should be for any individual patent. More recently, some, including University of
North Dakota law professor Eric E. Johnson, have argued that patents in different kinds of
industriessuch assoftware patentsshould be protected for different lengths of time.[21]

Stereotyping[edit]
Stereotyping is a type of heuristic that all people use to form opinions or make judgments about
things they have never seen or experienced.[22] They work as a mental shortcut to assess
everything from the social status of a person based on their actions to assumptions that a plant
that is tall, has a trunk, and has leaves is a tree even though the person making the evaluation
has never seen that particular type of tree before.
Stereotypes, as first described by journalist Walter Lippmann in his book Public Opinion (1922),
are the pictures we have in our heads which are built around experiences as well as what we are
told about the world.[23][24]