Short-term memory for responses: the "choose-small" effect.
Pigeons grow more likely to pick the low-effort option as the memory delay increases, showing that gaps between cue and choice can quietly erode willingness to work.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with pigeons in a lab. The birds had to remember which color sample went with a big work requirement and which went with a small one.
After the sample disappeared, a delay of a few seconds to a minute was added. Then the birds picked either the big or the small fixed-ratio key.
What they found
As the delay grew, pigeons more often picked the key that asked for fewer pecks. They acted as if they forgot the big-ratio cue and chose the easier job.
The longer the memory gap, the stronger this choose-small bias became.
How this fits with other research
Hartmann et al. (1982) saw the same drop in accuracy when pigeons waited before choosing. Their task had no ratio requirement, so the new study shows the delay hurt memory for effort as well as for color.
Gowen et al. (2013) also saw pigeons flip preference as delays lengthened, but they used food amount instead of work amount. Both papers show the same rule: longer delay equals shift to the smaller, safer option.
Kirkpatrick-Steger et al. (1996) added tokens and found that birds cared most about delay-to-exchange. Together these studies say delays matter most at the point of payoff, whether the payoff is food, tokens, or escaping hard work.
Why it matters
Your learners may pick the easy task if they have to wait before responding. Keep the delay between instruction and response short, or add prompts that remind them of the richer but harder option. When shaping delay tolerance, fade in the wait gradually so the memory of the better payoff stays strong.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Pigeons' short-term memory for fixed-ratio requirements was assessed using a delayed symbolic matching-to-sample procedure. Different choices were reinforced after fixed-ratio 10 and fixed-ratio 40 requirements, and delays of 0, 5, or 20 s were sometimes placed between sample ratios and choice. All birds made disproportionate numbers of responses to the small-ratio choice alternative when delays were interposed between ratios and choice, and this bias increased as a function of delay. Preference for the small fixed-ratio alternative was also observed on "no-sample" trials, during which the choice alternatives were presented without a prior sample ratio. This "choose-small" bias is analogous to results obtained by Spetch and Wilkie (1983) with event duration as the discriminative stimulus. The choose-small bias was attenuated when the houselight was turned on during delays, but overall accuracy was not influenced systematically by the houselight manipulation.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1989 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1989.52-311