The Monty Hall dilemma with pigeons: No, you choose for me

Abstract

In the Monty Hall dilemma, humans are initially given a choice among three alternatives, one of which has a hidden prize. After they have chosen, but before revealing whether they have won the prize, subjects are shown that one of the remaining alternatives does not have the prize, and they are asked whether they want to stay with their original choice or switch to the remaining alternative. Switching results in obtaining the prize two thirds of the time, but even after considerable training, humans fail to consistently adopt the optimal strategy of switching. Pigeons, however, show closer-to-optimal switching performance with this task. One of the reasons that humans choose suboptimally is their mistaken assumption that with two alternatives, the probabilities of winning the prize are the same for staying and switching, and staying may be preferred because of a sense of endowment (ownership of the initial response). When we tried to produce an endowment effect in pigeons by requiring 20 pecks (rather than one peck) for the initial choice, it actually resulted in faster acquisition of the switching response. In the present research with pigeons, we examined the finding from human research that subjects are more likely to switch if they are not responsible for making the initial choice (another approach to the endowment effect). Inconsistent with the findings with humans, we found that when the initial choice was made for the pigeons, they actually showed less of a tendency to switch than did pigeons that made the initial choice themselves.

Responses to Modified Monty Hall Dilemmas in Capuchin Monkeys, Rhesus Macaques, and Humans

“…In a different computerized MHD, humans, pigeons, and, to some extent, preschool children all showed the same general pattern of switching approximately 70%, although there were substantial individual differences (Mazur & Kahlbaugh, 2012). Zentall, Case, and Collins (2015) offered a further exploration of pigeons' responses to the MHD. When the initial choice was made for them (Forced-Choice Group; mirroring the design used by Stibel et al, 2009), pigeons maintained chance levels of switching throughout the experiments.…”

“…These designs offered animals, including humans, much more experience than the classic one-shot MHD does (hundreds or thousands of trials in each reviewed study). In such a context, the contributions of associative principles is more obvious, as when pigeons' switch responses are guided less by endowment effects and more by rote stimulus preferences (Zentall et al, 2015). Further exploration of the comparative psychology of the MHD promises to contribute still more to our understanding of the potential differences between implicit and explicit learning of the task contingencies.…”

Perceptions and Probabilities: Influence of Increased Options on Performance Generalization Across Two Variations of the Monty Hall Dilemma

“…Their results showed that participants switched more frequently when their initial selection was randomly determined than participants who freely selected their initial choice. Zentall et al (2015) used a similar methodology of forced initial choices to examine its effect on pigeons' performance. Unlike humans, pigeons that experienced forced initial selections performed worse overall by switching less frequently than pigeons with free selection.…”