Recognition Heuristic is a model of memory-based inferences, which means that if an individual had to make a decision based on two options, they’ll prioritize the one they recognize over the other. For example, if someone asked whether New York or Sana has a higher population, they would answer New York if Sana was unfamiliar to them.
According to research, Recognition Heuristic reduces effort in making judgments by relying on one single cue (whatever sparks a connection in our memory) and ignoring other information. Due to our overreliance on recognition, we risk picking an option that might not be correlated with the outcome we want.