Here is the translation: Simple heuristic makes us smarter

Author: [Germany] Goethe Gigeronel, [Germany] Peter M. Todd, translated by Liu Yongfang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2002-09-01
Features: In the past few years, theories of rational (judicious) human behavior have shed the shackles of a whimsical, experimentally unsupported view that making decisions rationally means maximizing expected benefits. Researchers have begun to seriously explore, through experiments, how humans actually respond to the immense complexity of their environment. "Fast and Frugal Heuristics—Let Us Be Wiser" provides a fascinating analysis and discussion of this revolution in cognitive science, not unlike a fatal blow to the traditional notion of infinite rationality. Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and professor of psychology and computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, calls this book one of the major contributions to the theory of bounded rationality. It demonstrates that the remarkable effectiveness of fast and frugal methods stems from their fit with the structure of real-world environments. This emphasis on "ecological rationality" represents a significant advancement, opening up a promising new research direction. Reinhard Selten, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and professor of economics at the University of Bonn, states that "Fast and Frugal Heuristics—Let Us Be Wiser" is a summary of an interdisciplinary research project carried out by the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. Since its English edition was launched as a key publication by Oxford University Press in 1999, it has sparked significant interest in fields such as psychology, economics, management science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral ecology. Herbert Simon, the father of bounded rationality and a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, notes that "The analysis and discussion of bounded rationality in cognitive science in 'Fast and Frugal Heuristics—Let Us Be Wiser' is fascinating, not unlike a fatal blow to the traditional view of infinite rationality." Reinhard Selten, another Nobel Prize winner in Economics, observes that "This book is one of the major contributions to the theory of bounded rationality. It shows that the remarkable effectiveness of fast and frugal methods stems from their fit with the structure of the environment. The emphasis on this 'ecological rationality' represents a significant advancement, opening up a promising new research direction." Donald A. Norman, a retired professor at the University of California, also remarks, "Research in decision-making will change with the publication of this book." Recently, East China Normal University Press published the Chinese translation as a key book in a timely manner. After reading the entire book, I believe it is an academic work worth recommending and studying!
The view and attitude toward rationality are one of the important criteria for measuring the theoretical inclinations of scientists (especially social and human scientists). From traditional disciplines such as philosophy and economics (including management science) to emerging fields like psychology and computer science, scholars are classified into different schools based on their differing views on this issue. In the field of psychology alone, from the rise and decline of the behaviorist paradigm to the emergence of the modern cognitive psychology paradigm, the struggle between rebellion against rationality and a return to rationality has been evident. Freud's psychoanalytic theory not only delivered a fatal blow to the traditional concepts held by psychologists but also influenced numerous disciplines beyond psychology. However, its extreme irrationalism has always made it seem unapproachable! It can be seen that psychologists are not unwilling to strike a balance between rationality and irrationality, but they have always failed to find a third path to understand and approach rationality. "Fast and Frugal Heuristics—Let Us Be Wiser" takes a solid step in this direction!
In the book, the authors explicitly state that human and animal rationality is bounded (neither entirely irrational nor purely rational), but this limited rationality is sufficient for them to make reasonable judgments and decisions in real-world environments. Real-world environments do not demand that humans and animals make optimal choices and decisions at all times, meaning no one needs to be anxious about the limitations of their rational resources. On the contrary, the idealists who yearn for infinite rationality to achieve optimal goals are out of touch with the times! This does not mean that the authors of the book advocate unboundedly lowering the goals of human rationality and reducing humans to the rational level of lower animals. Their minimal requirement for rationality is that it should match the demands of the real environment (including natural and social environments)! When this is achieved, from an ecological perspective, it is already sufficient. This kind of rationality is called "ecological rationality."
An important assumption is that whether an organism is rational or whether its judgments and decisions are reasonable should be judged by real-world external standards, not by the unrealistic ideal standards promoted by intellectualists. There is no abstract rationality detached from the real environment; if it exists, it has no value in helping organisms adapt to reality. Only by examining the rationality of humans and animals in the context of real environmental demands can a reasonable standard for evaluating rationality be found—the standard is "ecological rationality."
It is easy to propose an idea, but it is difficult to develop and prove it. What is commendable is that the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition Research Group, starting from the basic view of human rationality mentioned above, has formed a coherent and rigorous research plan and accumulated substantial evidence from various disciplines to support their. Since rationality only has adaptive value when it is put into practice and provides an opportunity for evaluation, the authors of the book first classify the real-world problems that organisms need to solve by using rational resources into two categories: First, they divide tasks into categories such as selection, memory, quantity estimation, and categorization based on the cognitive problems organisms typically face. Second, they divide tasks into categories such as food selection, mate selection, parental investment, and inferring intentions from actions based on real-world adaptive problems organisms face.
If human and animal rationality is bounded, then when facing the above real-world tasks, they should and must use fast and "wise" methods to allocate and utilize their resources. If human and animal rationality has ecological rationality, then only by "wisely" allocating and utilizing their limited rational resources can they achieve this. Therefore, the terms "bounded rationality" and "ecological rationality" have become the central concepts of the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition Research Group. Together, they make it necessary for organisms to adopt "fast and frugal" heuristics in real-world environments. Do organisms use fast and frugal heuristics? What kinds of heuristics do they use? When do they use fast and frugal heuristics? How effective are fast and frugal heuristics in real-world environments? Answering these questions is what constitutes the main content of the book.