The Recognition Heuristic Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002)Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002) presented evidence that people can profit from inferences from missing knowledge. As an example, they presented evidence that people may use their recognition of cities as a heuristic for estimating the population of a city. People using this heuristic are often surprisingly accurate. recognitionheuristic The logic goes like this: Contributor© POSbase 2005

The Recognition Heuristic If respondents do not know how many inhabitants a city has, they may ask themselves whether or not they know the city. If they do not know the city, they may conclude that it does not have very many inhabitants. Of course, the accuracy of this inference depends on the correlation between the degree to which a city is known and the target criterion, here the population. © POSbase 2005

The Recognition Heuristic In one study, the authors analyzed the correlations among (a) population of American cities, (b) newspaper coverage in the German newspaper Die Zeit, and (c) city recognition among German students. They found the following correlations: © POSbase 2005 City population Newspaper Coverage Recognition

The Recognition Heuristic Similar correlations were found for the correlations among (a) population of German cities, (b) newspaper coverage in the American newspaper Chicago Tribune, and (c) city recognition among American students in Chicago: © POSbase 2005 City population Newspaper Coverage Recognition

The Recognition Heuristic This is a nice example of bounded rationality: People who do not know a city may use the recognition heuristic. This is not optimal in terms of epistemic justification, but it is well enough as a satisficing shortcut to the right decision.bounded rationality Of course, the recognition heuristic works only if there is a positive correlation between the criterion variable and the stimuli a person encounters, but it may be relevant to food avoidance or social bonding. © POSbase 2005