As a manifestation of a 'cognitive turn' observable in all social sciences, Cognitive Economics is concerned with the beliefs and mental operations held by actors placed within a dynamical and strategic environment. It appears as a synthesis of an educative research program, dealing with crossed expectations of actors, and an evolutionist research program on collective learning processes.

The book mainly aims at extending the framework of game theory in order to better fit the results of rapidly increasing laboratory experiments concerned with individual choices and collective interactions. It also seeks to better explain some original economic phenomena involving boundedly rational agents in an institutional setting such as financial bubbles, job search or technological innovation.

Written in an informal way, the book is addressed to philosophers or cognitive scientists curious of how economics deal with cognition, as well as graduate students in economics eager to discover how economic science evolves.