Sanabria Federico, Thrailkill Eric
Department of Psychology,Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1104, USA.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2009 Mar;91(2):169-83. doi: 10.1901/jeab.2009.91-169.
The game of Matching Pennies (MP), a simplified version of the more popular Rock, Papers, Scissors, schematically represents competitions between organisms with incentives to predict each other's behavior. Optimal performance in iterated MP competitions involves the production of random choice patterns and the detection of nonrandomness in the opponent's choices. The purpose of this study was to replicate systematic deviations from optimal choice observed in humans when playing MP, and to establish whether suboptimal performance was better described by a modified linear learning model or by a more cognitively sophisticated reinforcement-tracking model. Two pairs of pigeons played iterated MP competitions; payoffs for successful choices (e.g., "Rock" vs. "Scissors") varied within experimental sessions and across experimental conditions, and were signaled by visual stimuli. Pigeons' behavior adjusted to payoff matrices; divergences from optimal play were analogous to those usually demonstrated by humans, except for the tendency of pigeons to persist on prior choices. Suboptimal play was well characterized by a linear learning model of the kind widely used to describe human performance. This linear learning model may thus serve as default account of competitive performance against which the imputation of cognitively sophisticated processes can be evaluated.
“猜硬币”游戏（MP）是更流行的“石头、剪刀、布”游戏的简化版本，它示意性地代表了生物体之间相互预测对方行为的竞争。在重复的MP比赛中，最佳表现包括产生随机选择模式以及检测对手选择中的非随机性。本研究的目的是重现人类在玩MP时观察到的与最佳选择的系统偏差，并确定次优表现是由修正的线性学习模型还是由更具认知复杂性的强化追踪模型能更好地描述。两对鸽子进行了重复的MP比赛；成功选择（例如，“石头”对“剪刀”）的收益在实验过程中和不同实验条件下有所变化，并通过视觉刺激发出信号。鸽子的行为根据收益矩阵进行调整；与最佳玩法的偏差与人类通常表现出的偏差类似，只是鸽子有坚持先前选择的倾向。次优玩法可以用广泛用于描述人类表现的那种线性学习模型很好地刻画。因此，这种线性学习模型可以作为竞争表现的默认解释，据此可以评估认知复杂过程的归因。
