Reprint. Originally published: New York : Wiley, 1956.

with a new preface by Jerome S. Bruner and Jacqueline J. Goodnow ; appendix on language by Roger W. Brown /

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This is a pioneering account of how human beings achieve a measure of rationality in spite of the constraints imposed by bias, limited attention and memory, and the risks of error proscribed by pressures of time and ignorance. This seminal study was a major event in the cognitive revolution of the 1950s, and four decades later is still read as a major contribution to our understanding of the mind.