ABSTRACT
A substantial portion of judgment and decision-making research has led to the conclusion that using heuristics-simple mental strategies that people use to deal with our uncertain world-result in erroneous decisions. The message that “heuristics are bad” primarily stems from a wealth of research showing that human decision making deviates from idealistic, statistics-based decisionmaking models that strive for optimality (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Nisbett & Ross, 1980). In particular, it has been argued that heuristics ignore apparently relevant information, whereas complex models examine everything. A negative view of heuristics has spread to many domains (see Gilovich, Griffin, & Kahneman, 2002, for some examples), including criminal investigations, where the use of heuristics by police officers is thought to produce reasoning errors that contribute to criminal investigative failures (e.g., Findley & Scott, 2006). One heuristic-like model that is cited frequently as an explanation for criminal investigative failures is tunnel vision. If investigating officers, for example, stop searching for additional suspects after locating a viable suspect, they may be accused of using tunnel vision. Despite a complete absence of empirical research on tunnel vision in criminal investigations, there have been calls to eradicate this mental “virus” (Cory, 2001) by employing more deliberate and careful decision-making strategies (e.g., Findley & Scott, 2006).
