Serial Pattern Learning: Rats and Pigeons Predict the Future but It May Result in Suboptimal Choice
Abstract
Nonhuman species have been shown to be able to use information about the hierarchical structure of serial patterns involving the consequences of their behavior. In the present article, three lines of research are examined that provide evidence for such learning. The first shows that rats are sensitive, not only to the trial by trial sequence of the changing magnitude of reward but also to the monotonic decrease in those rewards. The second line of research shows that in an eight-lever box, rats can divide a complex sequence of required responses into chunks (right, right, left; right, right, left; etc.), defining a “rule.” The third line of research demonstrates that when pigeons are trained on a sequence in which there is a monotonically increasing or decreasing response requirement for each reward, the sequences themselves take on additional incentive value leading to suboptimal choice to leave the schedule. Monotonically increasing response requirements take on a relatively negative reward value, whereas monotonically decreasing response requirements take on positive reward value. The three lines of research demonstrate that animals are sensitive not only to the immediate consequences of their behavior but also to the pattern of future consequences.
Keywords: serial pattern learning, response chunking, monotonic changes in response for reward, rats, pigeons