Economic cognition in humans and animals: the search for core mechanisms

Over the past few decades, research in judgment and decision-making has revealed that decision-makers, though not always rational, are often quite predictable. Here, we attempt to explore the nature of this systematicity with a different approach to decision-making. Specifically, we propose that som...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current opinion in neurobiology 2009-02, Vol.19 (1), p.63-66
Main Authors: Santos, Laurie R, Hughes, Kelly D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Cognition
Decision Making
Humans
Models, Economic
Neurology
Primates
Psychiatry
Social Behavior
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Summary:Over the past few decades, research in judgment and decision-making has revealed that decision-makers, though not always rational, are often quite predictable. Here, we attempt to explore the nature of this systematicity with a different approach to decision-making. Specifically, we propose that some of the systematicity of human decision-making may result from the operation of core knowledge mechanisms, domain-specific learning mechanisms with characteristic processing limitations. In this review, we describe the core knowledge approach and argue that at least some aspects of human decision-making have the signature characteristics of a core knowledge system, namely, such strategies develop early in ontogeny and are shared with closely related primate relatives.
ISSN:0959-4388
1873-6882
DOI:10.1016/j.conb.2009.05.005