HEURISTIC

Heuristic

Heuristic refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery that give a solution which is not guaranteed to be optimal. Where the exhaustive search is impractical, heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution via mental shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, stereotyping, or common sense.

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heuristic

Noun

  1. A heuristic method.
  2. The art of applying heuristic methods.

Adjective

  1. Relating to general strategies or methods for solving problems.
  2. that solves a problem more quickly but is not certain to arrive at an optimal solution.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: heuristic
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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