Further examining how animals weigh conflicting information about reward sources over time.
After two days, what looks like a return to an old favorite might just be random exploring.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers watched pigeons choose between two food sources. One gave food every time. The other gave food only sometimes.
After the birds learned the difference, the team waited two days. Then they let the birds choose again. They wanted to see if old preferences came back.
What they found
After 48 hours, some birds switched back to the risky option. But the data could not tell why.
The change might be true spontaneous recovery. Or it might just be birds trying something new. The study could not separate these two causes.
How this fits with other research
Norris et al. (2024) tested kids with problem behavior. They found strong, stable preferences even after 24-hour breaks. This seems to clash with the pigeon data. The difference is species and time. Kids held steady at one day. Birds drifted after two days.
Butler et al. (2021) tracked edible preferences in children for a full year. Those choices stayed rock solid. Again, human data show more staying power than pigeon data.
Lancioni et al. (2011) worked with rats and pigeons. They showed that longer breaks between trials can lower preference for unsure rewards. The new study adds a twist: after very long breaks, the drop might look like recovery when it is really just drift.
Why it matters
When you run a reinforcer test on Monday and plan to use the results on Wednesday, you might see a shift. This study says the shift may not mean the learner truly wants the old item again. They could just be exploring. Re-check preference if more than a day passes before treatment.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Spontaneous recovery of choice is a behavioral phenomenon where a delay period (without new experience) elicits the recovery of a preference consistent with a previous distribution of rewards, rather than the most recently experienced distribution of rewards. On short timescales (< 48 h), the occurrence of spontaneous recovery of choice has been effectively predicted by the Temporal Weighting Rule. However, previous study of this phenomenon over longer timescales (> 48 h) has found results inconsistent with model predictions. The present experiments investigated three potential explanations for these results: (1.) whether time's passage alone causes animals to revert to random exploratory behavior; (2.) whether time's effect on behavior is moderated by experience of volatility in rewards during training; and (3.) whether a drift toward random exploratory behavior produced by time's passage can be distinguished from the effect of spontaneous recovery of choice. Subjects experienced varied reward conditions in a concurrent choice procedure before preference between options was evaluated at various test delays. Obtained results ruled out these first two explanations, but were inconclusive in distinguishing the effects of a drift toward random exploratory behavior from the effect of spontaneous recovery of choice. Limitations and directions for further investigation are discussed.
, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s10071-025-01982-x