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Comparative inspiration: from puzzles with pigeons to novel discoveries with humans in risky choice

Madan, Christopher; Ludvig, Elliot; Spetch, Marcia

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Authors

Elliot Ludvig

Marcia Spetch



Abstract

Both humans and non-human animals regularly encounter decisions involving risk and uncertainty. This paper provides an overview of our research program examining risky decisions in which the odds and outcomes are learned through experience in people and pigeons. We summarize the results of 15 experiments across 8 publications, with a total of over 1300 participants. We highlight 4 key findings from this research: (1) people choose differently when the odds and outcomes are learned through experience compared to when they are described; (2) when making decisions from experience, people overweight values at or near the ends of the distribution of experienced values (i.e., the best and the worst, termed the “extreme-outcome rule”), which leads to more risk seeking for relative gains than for relative losses; (3) people show biases in self-reported memory whereby they are more likely to report an extreme outcome than an equally-often experienced non-extreme outcome, and they judge these extreme outcomes as having occurred more often; and (4) under certain circumstances pigeons show similar patterns of risky choice as humans, but the underlying processes may not be identical. This line of research has stimulated other research in the field of judgement and decision making, illustrating how investigations from a comparative perspective can lead in surprising directions.

Citation

Madan, C., Ludvig, E., & Spetch, M. (2019). Comparative inspiration: from puzzles with pigeons to novel discoveries with humans in risky choice. Behavioural Processes, 160, 10-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.009

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 11, 2018
Online Publication Date Jan 3, 2019
Publication Date 2019-03
Deposit Date Dec 12, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Behavioural Processes
Print ISSN 0376-6357
Electronic ISSN 1872-8308
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 160
Pages 10-19
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.009
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1406529
Publisher URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635718304200
Additional Information This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Comparative inspiration: From puzzles with pigeons to novel discoveries with humans in risky choice; Journal Title: Behavioural Processes; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.009; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

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