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Experiments on decision making by humans show that the choices that we make can be very labile. The magni-tude of our preferences, and even our rank ordering of options, can vary according to the number and type of alternatives available for comparison. This apparent irrationality has been argued to result from our use of decision heuristics that have evolved to enable us to choose quickly and efficiently between options differing in multiple attributes. Here, we argue that, because there is also selective pressure for animals to make mating decisions quickly, and because potential mates also differ in multiple attributes, similar decision heur-or her underlying quality. We describe some of the rami-fications of such comparative evaluation, and argue that it could offer new insights into some of the biggest out-standing problems in mate choice and sexual selection. Mate choice as information processing Mate choice can be viewed as an information-processing problem [1]. Females have to perceive cues from males; they have to remember this information from one male to the next; and, finally, they have to use the information that they have obtained to make mating decisions e.g