intuitivus

Intuitivus is a theoretical framework in cognitive science and design studies describing a mode of rapid, automatic judgment that arises from pattern recognition and accumulated experience.

The term is derived from Latin intuitivus meaning "perceived directly" and has been used to discuss how people form immediate assessments in familiar domains.

Core characteristics include speed, often without conscious deliberation; holistic assessment that integrates disparate cues; and a reliance on affective input and tacit knowledge, with performance moderated by expertise, context, and feedback.

Researchers study intuitivus with decision tasks, think-aloud protocols, reaction-time measures, and, in neuroscience work, neuroimaging to identify patterns associated with experiential judgment.

Applications appear in human–computer interaction, where intuitive design aims to align interfaces with users’ rapid judgments; in artificial intelligence, where models attempt to emulate heuristic reasoning; and in education to cultivate domain-specific intuition.

Reception is mixed: some scholars treat intuitivus as a productive construct for explaining rapid judgments; others caution that it risks conflating intuition with biases or overlapping existing concepts such as System 1 thinking or tacit knowledge.