Recent research from economics, psychology, cognitive science, computer science, and marketing is increasingly interested in the idea that people face cognitive costs when making decisions. Reviewing and synthesizing this research, we develop a framework of cognitive costs that organizes concepts along a temporal dimension and maps out when costs occur in the decision-making process and […]

Animal cognition research is often firmly grounded in the ecology and life history of the species. However, there are many studies exploring cognitive tasks that appear ecologically irrelevant. Ecologically irrelevant experiments are cognitive tests lacking clear ecological context in their inspiration, design, and applications. Here, I explore the case for and against ecologically irrelevant cognitive […]