A heuristic is an aid to learning, casually referred to as a rule of thumb. Formally, a heuristic is a mechanism capable of altering its internal model of the environment in reaction to feedback, or payoffs received.
Heuristics are often employed to learn when problems are too complex to solve explicitly. For example, fictitious play and best reply dynamics are simple heuristics for learning equilibria in games.
updated 22 August 2006
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