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From Bounded Rationality to Expertise

The ninth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Fernand Gobet Introduction Historically, a pervasive assumption in the social sciences, in particular economics, is that humans are perfect rational agents. Having full access to information and enjoying unlimited computational resources, they maximise utility when…

The Psychology of Chess

Fernand Gobet has a new book out that, as a (very rusty) chess player, has piqued my interest. As a cognitive scientist and a highly skilled player himself, there are few (if any) better placed than Fernand to write on this topic. Visitors to this site might recall Fernand’s excellent essay on Herb Simon. Here is…

From Bounded Rationality to Expertise

The ninth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Fernand Gobet Introduction Historically, a pervasive assumption in the social sciences, in particular economics, is that humans are perfect rational agents. Having full access to information and enjoying unlimited computational resources, they maximise utility when…

The World of Yesterday

“The greatest curse brought down on us by technology is that it prevents us from escaping the present even for a brief time. Previous generations could retreat into solitude and seclusion when disaster struck; it was our fate to be aware of everything catastrophic happening everywhere in the world at the hour and the second…