Heuristic thinking and human intelligence: a commentaryon Marewski, Gaissmaier and Gigerenzer

摘要

Marewski, Gaissmaier and Gigerenzer (2009)present a review of research on fast and frugal heuristics,arguing that complex problems are best solved by simpleheuristics, rather than the application of knowledge andlogical reasoning. We argue that the case for such heuris-tics is overrated. First, we point out that heuristics can oftenlead to biases as well as effective responding. Second, weshow that the application of logical reasoning can be bothnecessary and relatively simple. Finally, we argue that theevidence for a logical reasoning system that co-exists withsimpler heuristic forms of thinking is overwhelming. Notonly is it implausible a priori that we would have evolvedsuch a system that is of no use to us, but extensive evidencefrom the literature on dual processing in reasoning andjudgement shows that many problems can only be solvedwhen this form of reasoning is used to inhibit and overrideheuristic thinking.