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In three experiments, subjects learned to classify simulated aircraft using four probabilistic cues then classified test sets designed to contrast predictions of several compensatory and non-compensatory heuristics. Results indicated that a proportion of subjects appeared to use a non-compensatory fast and frugal heuristic but that significant proportions used less frugal compensatory decision rules. The relative proportions of subjects exhibiting responses consistent with the fast and frugal heuristic versus other decision rules was largely unaffected by manipulations of time pressure and perceived cue uncertainty. An extreme time constraint, however, did result in significant differences in the proportions of subjects who preferred non-compensatory to compensatory decision rules. These results suggest that it is possible to model multi-attribute decision tasks like threat assessment with a fast and frugal heuristic although no single heuristic is a general model for the simulated threat assessment task. Copyright © 2006 Crown in the right of Canada. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]