Goldstein,D.G.
Gigerenzer,G.

Introduces the recognition heuristic which exploits the vast and efficient capacity of recognition to make inferences about unknown aspects of the world. The authors define the recognition heuristic and describe how to benefit from ignorance and how to measure recognition. Three experiments are described to show whether people actually use the recognition heuristic. In Exp 1, 22 Ss were told to check off from a list which cities they recognized. Results indicate that the simple test of the recognition heuristic showed that people adhere to it the vast majority of the time. Exp 2 examined whether people use the recognition heuristic despite conflicting information. 21 Ss completed an information training session and then were presented with pairs of cities and asked to choose the larger city in each pair. Results show that additional information was not integrated into the inferences. Exp 3 tested whether the less-is-more effect occurs in human reasoning in 52 US college students. Ss completed 1 quiz on the 22 largest cities in the US and 1 quiz on the 22 largest cities in Germany. Findings show that despite the presence of substantial knowledge about American cities, the recognition heuristic resulted in a slight less-is-more effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved)

Goldstein, D. G., & Gigerenzer, G. (1999). The recognition heuristic: How ignorance makes us smart. In G. Gigerenzer, P. M. Todd, & the ABC Research Group., Simple heuristics that make us smart (pp. 37-58). New York: Oxford University Press.(Croatian translation: Heuristika prepoznavanja: Kako nas neznanje cini pametnima. Uvod u bihevioralnu ekonomiju, pp. 423-441, by D. Polsek & K. K. Bovan, Eds., 2014, Zagreb: Institut Drutvenih Znanosti Ivo Pilar) (Full text)

Publication year	1999
Document type:	In book
Publication status:	Published
External URL:	http://library.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_The_Recognition_1999.pdf View
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