McDevitt Margaret A, Diller James W, Pietrzykowski Malvina O
Department of Psychology, McDaniel College, 2 College Hill, Westminster, MD, 21157, USA.
Department of Psychological Science, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT, USA.
Learn Behav. 2019 Dec;47(4):334-343. doi: 10.3758/s13420-019-00391-8.
Many studies have shown that pigeons will sometimes behave suboptimally by choosing an option that provides food less frequently over one that provides food more frequently. The critical factor in driving suboptimal behavior in these procedures is that the delayed outcomes are differentially signaled on the suboptimal alternative, but not the optimal alternative. Although this procedure is frequently cited as potentially analogous to human gambling, there is little empirical data to evaluate this assertion. The present study tested both pigeon (Experiment 1) and human (Experiment 2) subjects with a suboptimal choice task. Subjects chose between a suboptimal alternative that provided a large reinforcer 20% of the time and an optimal alternative that always provided a small reinforcer. Stimuli presented during the delays signaled the outcomes on the suboptimal alternative in some conditions. When outcomes were signaled, pigeons chose the suboptimal alternative more frequently than did humans. When the outcomes were not signaled, pigeons' choices became more optimal, but humans' choices did not. Humans' suboptimal choice was unrelated to performance on a probability discounting task. Overall, these findings suggest that although both pigeons and humans can choose suboptimally, more research is needed in order to determine whether non-human performance on this task can serve as a model for human gambling.
许多研究表明，鸽子有时会表现出次优行为，它们会选择提供食物频率较低的选项，而不是提供食物频率较高的选项。在这些实验程序中，驱动次优行为的关键因素是，延迟的结果在次优选项上有不同的信号提示，而在最优选项上则没有。尽管这个实验程序经常被认为可能类似于人类赌博，但几乎没有实证数据来评估这一断言。本研究用一个次优选择任务对鸽子（实验1）和人类（实验2）受试者进行了测试。受试者要在一个次优选项和一个最优选项之间做出选择，次优选项有20%的时间会提供一个大的强化物，最优选项则总是提供一个小的强化物。在延迟期间呈现的刺激在某些条件下提示了次优选项的结果。当结果有信号提示时，鸽子比人类更频繁地选择次优选项。当结果没有信号提示时，鸽子的选择变得更优，但人类的选择没有。人类的次优选择与概率折扣任务的表现无关。总体而言，这些发现表明，虽然鸽子和人类都可能做出次优选择，但还需要更多的研究来确定非人类在这项任务上的表现是否可以作为人类赌博的模型。
