Language Research Center, Georgia State University, University Plaza, Atlanta, Georgia 30302, USA.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2012 Apr;19(2):357-62. doi: 10.3758/s13423-012-0218-x.
When information is incomplete but a choice must be made, individuals sometimes can rely on past experiences to help them assess uncertain outcomes in terms of the probabilities of payoffs. Monkeys (Cebus apella) and humans (Homo sapiens) were presented with a test in which they first made quantity judgments between two clear options. Then they made choices in which only one option was visible, and they had to estimate the quantity for the other option. Both species were guided by the past outcomes, as they shifted from selecting the known option to selecting the unknown option at the point at which the known option went from being greater than the average rate of return to being less than the average rate of return. This comparability across species suggests that tallying ongoing average rates of return from repeated choices occurs spontaneously and likely serves an adaptive purpose when dealing with uncertainty in the environment.
当信息不完整但必须做出选择时，个体有时可以依靠过去的经验来帮助他们评估不确定结果的收益概率。研究人员向猴子（Cebus apella）和人类（Homo sapiens）展示了一项测试，他们首先在两个明确的选项之间进行数量判断。然后，他们在只有一个选项可见的情况下做出选择，并且必须估计另一个选项的数量。这两个物种都受到过去结果的指导，因为当已知选项的收益从高于平均回报率变为低于平均回报率时，它们从选择已知选项变为选择未知选项。这种跨物种的可比性表明，从重复选择中计算持续的平均回报率是自发的，并且在处理环境中的不确定性时可能具有适应性目的。
