Teaching pigeons to commit base-rate neglect.
Whereas humans display base-rate neglect in a behavioral analogue of the base-rate problem, pigeons have been shown to behave optimally in a comparable task, appropriately weighting base-rate and case-cue information. Previous studies have shown that prior experience may interfere with optimal decisions for human subjects, a result consistent with the position that poor and illogical decisions often follow from the misapplication of learned rules. The present study shows that pigeons will also display base-rate neglect if given extensive pretraining with informative case cues. Two experiments with pigeons, in a matching-to-sample procedure designed to mimic the classic base-rate problem, show that pigeons display base-rate neglect after extensive pretraining with the matching task.
Fantino
Edmund
E
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093-0109, USA. efantino@ucsd.edu
Kanevsky
Inna Glaz
IG
Charlton
Shawn R
SR
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D010856:Columbidae; D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological / Q000502:physiology; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D007721:Knowledge of Results, Psychological; D011336:Probability; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*