Recognition-primed Decision Making

Recognition-primed decision making (RPDM) is the process by which experts in time-pressured domains act by recognizing a situation as one they’ve seen before, with the appropriate action coming with the recognition.

Klein's firefighters

Firefighters often described their decision process as “I just knew what to do” because their pattern library is deep enough that matching is faster than reasoning.

Common in firefighters, ER doctors, military commanders.