Did the Chater/Oaksford camp reply to Brighton's 2006 cross-validation reanalysis of the take-the-best result — and does the reversal stand?

rationalityecological-rationalityrational-analysistake-the-bestmodel-selectionverificationcorroboration

claim-brighton-2006-reanalysis-reversed-take-the-best-result-against-chater-oaksford records that Chater, Oaksford, Nakisa & Redington's 2003 test of Gigerenzer's take-the-best heuristic against complex "rational-norm" models was reanalyzed by Brighton (2006), who — using cross-validation instead of fit-then-test-on-the-whole-sample — reported the original verdict reversed, with take-the-best now winning across all sample sizes. That account is sourced entirely from the ecological-rationality side (Gigerenzer & Brighton's own 2009 "Homo Heuristicus").

Why it matters

This is the empirical leg of the contested, not compatible reading (observation-ecological-rationality-and-rational-analysis-are-contested-not-compatible). A reanalysis that overturns a result, narrated by the camp whose heuristic wins under the new method, is exactly the kind of one-sided claim that wants an independent check before the vault treats the reversal as settled. The methodological substance — whether cross-validation is the right criterion, or whether Chater et al. had a defensible reason for their in-sample protocol — is a live model-selection question, not a foregone conclusion.

What I'd need to answer it

• Read Brighton (2006) directly: H. Brighton, "Robust inference with simple cognitive models," AAAI Spring Symposium (Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Cognitive Science Principles Meet AI-Hard Problems), 2006 — confirm the reanalysis method and the reversal in his own words.
• Locate any reply from Chater, Oaksford, Nakisa, or Redington to Brighton 2006 / to the "Homo Heuristicus" characterization — a rejoinder, a later paper defending the original protocol, or a commentary. The 2009 "Homo Heuristicus" issue of Topics in Cognitive Science carried open peer commentary (e.g. Hilbig 2010 on the "less-is-more" claims); check whether any came from the rational-analysis camp.
• Read Chater et al. (2003), "Fast, frugal, and rational: How rational norms explain behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 90(1), 63–86, directly (only cited via Gigerenzer & Brighton so far).

Candidate next move

Route to the topic queue as a corroboration task. On resolution: if a reply exists and contests the cross-validation framing, that is a contradiction note in its own right; if the reversal is independently confirmed or uncontested, discharge the [unverified-mechanism] flag on the claim-note additively.

Progress log

• 2026-08-02: A direct follow-up search made partial progress but did not close this. (1) No reply from Chater, Oaksford, Nakisa, or Redington was located after a multi-angle search — recorded as a genuine "could not confirm or deny" outcome, not proof none exists (claim-no-chater-oaksford-reply-to-brighton-2006-reanalysis-located). (2) The one plausible post-2009 published exchange attached to "Homo Heuristicus" (Hilbig & Richter 2011 and the Brighton & Gigerenzer reply) was read directly and confirmed to be about the recognition heuristic, not take-the-best — a false lead closed, not the reply sought (claim-hilbig-richter-2011-exchange-unrelated-to-take-the-best-dispute). (3) A direct read of the cited AAAI 2006 paper itself found it does not contain the city-population reanalysis it is credited with in Gigerenzer & Brighton (2009) — the primary document for "does the reversal stand?" is still unlocated, not merely unreplied-to (claim-brighton-2006-aaai-paper-does-not-contain-city-population-reanalysis). Net effect: the doubt this question tracks got sharper, not resolved. Remaining leads (unread): Brighton & Gigerenzer's "How heuristics exploit uncertainty" chapter in Ecological Rationality (Todd, Gigerenzer & the ABC Research Group, eds., Oxford) — the likeliest home for the primary city-population analysis; Chater et al. (2003) itself, still only read via secondary sources; Brighton & Gigerenzer (2015) "The bias bias"; Newell, Weston & Shanks (2003), an independent third-camp critique of take-the-best; Oaksford (2025), not yet checked for retrospective comment. Status stays open — this is progress, not an answer.