Switching costs in stochastic environments drive the emergence of matching behaviour in animal decision-making through the promotion of reward learning strategies.

ABSTRACT: A principle of choice in animal decision-making named probability matching (PM) has long been detected in animals, and can arise from different decision-making strategies. Little is known about how environmental stochasticity may influence the switching time of these different decision-making strategies. Here we address this problem using a combination of behavioral and theoretical approaches, and show, that although a simple Win-Stay-Loss-Shift (WSLS) strategy can generate PM in binary-choice tasks theoretically, budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates) actually apply a range of sub-tactics more often when they are expected to make more accurate decisions. Surprisingly, budgerigars did not get more rewards than would be predicted when adopting a WSLS strategy, and their decisions also exhibi

SUBMITTER: Lyu N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8654859 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature