Heuristics denote a powerful concept, covering a wide range of computational, economic, and psychological sciences, as the ability to handle challenging problems with minimal resources. From a computational perspective, heuristics are commonly used in decision making - when vast amounts of information are available in complex environments - or even when dealing with intractable problems. Through shortcuts and tricks, they can produce acceptable solutions even with few resources compared to exhaustive approaches. Although found on many practical applications, their rich interdisciplinary history is not commonly explored in literature. This paper presents a recent and comprehensive literature review on the topic of heuristics. We present historical data that emphasizing the growth of this concept in several research fields, since the 1950s, and the authors' perspective on future directions. This history is told with a timeline as background, highlighting from the bounded rationality to computational intractability.

中文翻译：

---

启发式简史：从有限理性到棘手性


启发式是一个强大的概念，涵盖广泛的计算、经济和心理科学，是用最少的资源处理具有挑战性的问题的能力。从计算的角度来看，启发式方法通常用于决策（当复杂环境中存在大量信息时），甚至在处理棘手问题时。通过捷径和技巧，与详尽的方法相比，即使资源很少，他们也可以产生可接受的解决方案。尽管在许多实际应用中都有发现，但它们丰富的跨学科历史并没有在文献中得到普遍探讨。本文介绍了关于启发式主题的最新且全面的文献综述。我们提供的历史数据强调了自 20 世纪 50 年代以来这一概念在多个研究领域的发展，以及作者对未来方向的看法。这段历史以时间线为背景讲述，突出了从有限理性到计算复杂性。