Heyes is the author of Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking (2018),[3][4][5] described by Tyler Cowen as "an important book and likely the most thoughtful of the year in the social sciences".

[6] Heyes has argued that the picture presented by some evolutionary psychology of the human mind as a collection of cognitive instincts – organs of thought shaped by genetic evolution over very long time periods[7][8] – does not fit research results.

[13] After passing the eleven-plus exam, Heyes studied at Highworth Grammar School for Girls and then obtained a Bachelor of Science (1981) and PhD (1984) in psychology at University College London (UCL).

This experimental work, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, BBSRC, EPSRC, and ESRC, initially focused on nonhuman animals – rodents and birds – and later used behavioural and neurophysiological methods to examine cognitive processes in adult humans.

[16] Heyes has collaborated with economists as a Fellow of the ESRC Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution (1995–2010), founded by Ken Binmore, and since 2010 as a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Advanced Study in Toulouse, directed by Paul Seabright.

Distinctively human cognitive mechanisms – such as language, imitation, theory of mind, episodic memory, causal understanding, morality, and explicit metacognition – are constructed in childhood through social interaction.

These "cognitive gadgets" are built from and by "old parts" – genetically inherited attentional, motivational, and learning processes that are present in a wide range of animals.

"[3] Heyes's "cultural evolutionary psychology" implies that the human mind is more fragile and more agile than previously assumed; more vulnerable to catastrophe, and better able to adapt to new technologies and ways of life.

"In a skeletal, traumatized population, children would be unlikely to develop the Big Special cognitive mechanisms, such as causal understanding, episodic memory, imitation and mindreading.

However "cultural evolutionary psychology ... suggests that distinctively human cognitive mechanisms are light on their feet, constantly changing to meet the demands of new social and physical environments. ...

[24] Frans de Waal, a long-standing critic, believes that Heyes takes simple explanations for animal behavior too seriously, and engages in "theoretical acrobatics".

"[6] Economist Diane Coyle described Cognitive Gadgets as a new and "persuasive approach to thinking about decision-making – not for example as a matter of setting up choices in ways that nudge flawed humans to do the right thing".

[28] Reviewing Cognitive Gadgets in the arts journal Leonardo, Jan Baatens described the book as "an impressive and convincing intervention in the debate on what makes us human", and commends Heyes's style of thinking as "nuanced and cautious.