Choice behavior on discrete trials: a demonstration of the occurrence of a response strategy

Abstract

Three pairs of pigeons were trained to peck at two keys presented simultaneoulsy in discrete trials with intertrial intervals of 1, 22, or 120 sec. Left-key responses incremented the probability of reinforcement for the first right-key response and, conversely, right-key responses incremented the probability of reinforcement for the first left-key response. In terms of relative response rates, it was found that all birds' choices were described by a momentary maximizing strategy, but this fact was not reflected in the detailed sequential statistics for birds with the longer (22 or 120 sec) intertrial intervals. It was hypothesized that choice behavior, in general, may be accurately described by a momentary maximizing sequence, but that prior failures to demonstrate this were due to "errors" in executing the momentary maximizing sequence. These misappropriated responses, which are hypothesized to be randomly distributed among the responses defining the momentary maximizing sequence, caused successive choices to appear to be statistically independent when, in fact, they were not.