heuristik

Heuristik, or heuristics in English, refers to simple, efficient rules or methods that help people make judgments, form estimates, or solve problems quickly. Derived from the Greek heuriskein, meaning "to discover," the concept is used across psychology, philosophy, education, and computer science to describe practical approaches that work well in many situations even if they do not guarantee a perfect or optimal solution.

In cognitive psychology, heuristics are mental shortcuts that reduce cognitive load and speed up decision making. They can produce accurate results under uncertainty but also lead to predictable errors or biases. Classic examples include the availability heuristic (judging likelihood by the ease of recall), the representativeness heuristic (assessing similarity to a stereotype), and anchoring (relying too heavily on an initial piece of information).

In artificial intelligence and operations research, heuristics denote problem-solving methods that search for good solutions efficiently rather than exhaustively. They are used to guide algorithms in tasks such as routing, scheduling, and optimization. A well-known example is the use of heuristic functions in the A* search algorithm, which estimates remaining distance to reduce search effort.

Across languages, the German term Heuristik is used similarly to the English, describing methods for discovery and decision making. In both academic and applied contexts, heuristics are valued for practicality and speed, yet they carry the trade-off of potential bias or suboptimal outcomes. The study of heuristics seeks to understand when they yield reliable judgments and when they fail.