Information processing by pigeons (Columba livia): Incentive as information.

Abstract

Experiment 1 showed that the Hick-Hyman law (W. E. Hick, 1952;R. Hyman, 1953) described the effects of anticipated reinforcement, a form of incentive, on pigeons' (Columba livia) reaction time to respond to a target spatial location. Reaction time was an approximately linear function of amount of information interpreted as probability of reinforcement, implying that pigeons processed incentive at a constant rate. Experiment 2 showed that the Hick-Hyman law described effects of incentive even when it varied from moment to moment in a serial reaction time task similar to that of M. J. Nissen and P. Bullemer (1987), and processing information about target spatial location modulated absolute reaction time and not rate of processing incentive. The results support mental continuity and provide comparative support for the idea of the economics of information in economic theory about the incentive value of information.

Artificial grammar learning in pigeons

“…Combined with the fact that starlings can recognize regularities across temporal sequences of their naturalistic perceptual auditory units, our results suggest a general ability of birds to learn to recognize regularities in systems of complex sequential stimuli. We believe the possibility of this general ability is further strengthened by the discovery that pigeons can learn to recognize statistical regularities in repeating temporal sequences of spatial locations and do so in a manner highly similar to that of humans (Froehlich, Herbranson, Loper, Wood, & Shimp, 2004;Shimp, Froehlich, & Herbranson, 2007). This cognitive tool may be a prerequisite for human language but now appears not to be uniquely human or even uniquely mammalian.…”

From Momentary Maximizing to Serial Response Times and Artificial Grammar Learning

“…We are not aware of corresponding results in the human literature, where it is relatively rare to manipulate a variable such as reinforcement probability, either local or overall. Our results suggest that anticipated reinforcement probability, like any other probability, may be viewed in terms of amount of information (see equation 1 in Shimp et al, 2007 ). We fi nd it particularly interesting that there may as yet be no human equivalent to the present results obtained from pigeons, because the idea that information is an incentive is not new.…”

“…We found these results to be so encouraging that we subsequently conducted two more experiments using the same basic serial response time task (Shimp, Froehlich, & Herbranson, 2007 ). Both experiments examined how incentive, in the form of anticipated reinforcement, aff ected information processing.…”

“…In economic theory, it plays a large and prominent role. Indeed, the importance of this idea is such that perhaps we may be forgiven for speculating that the present results provide some important comparative insight into the workings of the Shimp, Froehlich, and Herbranson ( 2007 ). Left panel : Local mean median reaction time averaged over four birds and the last 5 days of a condition, plotted as a function of the local probability of reinforcement.…”

Toward the unification of molecular and molar analyses

“…Why not develop a theory to handle these data as well as what is usually thought of as molecular and molar data? An especially striking challenge in my mind is defined by the recent discovery that pigeons under the control of operant methods respond to statistical sequential information in serial response-time tasks in a manner similar to how human infants respond to statistical information in natural language (Shimp, Froehlich, & Herbranson, 2007). Furthermore, operant methods can teach pigeons artificial grammars (Herbranson & Shimp, 2003.…”