Fast and frugal decision-making refers to the application of ecologically rational heuristics, such as the recognition heuristic, which are rooted in the psychological capacities that we have evolved as human animals (e.g. memory and perceptual systems). They are ‘fast and frugal’ because they are effective under conditions of bounded rationality—when knowledge, time, and computational power are limited (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002).
References
Goldstein, D. G., & Gigerenzer, G. (2002). Models of ecological rationality: the recognition heuristic. Psychological Review, 109(1), 75-90.