Exorcising demons.
ABC claims to have exorcised the demons associated with optimality-based models of decision making. Fast and frugal heuristics appear to provide elegant, yet relatively simple, descriptions of a variety of behavior patterns, including those that some behavioral ecologists attribute to "rules of thumb." I worry, however, that the notion of ecological rationality fails to provide an adequate framework for characterizing the etiologies of behavior patterns described by ABC's heuristics. Thus, demons may still lurk. These demons could be exorcised, I believe, by incorporating the functional analyses characteristic of the experimental analysis of behavior.
Pitts
Raymond C
RC
University of North Carolina Wilmington, Department of Psychology, 601 S. College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403-5612, USA. pittsr@uncw.edu
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003657:Decision Making; D004463:Ecology; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological