Paradox, performance, and the architecture of decision-making in animals

Abstract

SYNPOSIS. The analysis of risk-sensitive foraging is beginning to explore the psychological and cognitive mechanisms involved in decision-making under uncertainty as well as the more traditional functional analysis. Over the past 40 years cognitive psychologists exploring human decision-making have made great use of apparent "paradoxesγ in rational choice behavior in elucidating aspects of information-processing. In this paper I review several of these paradoxes as they might relate to animal decision-making and the interpretation of cognitive architecture. The St. Petersburg Paradox can be related directly to the original analysis of risk-sensitive foraging by focusing on the non-linear translation of resources into currencies of evolutionary value, e.g., rate of energy gain. The Allais Paradox focuses on the need to evaluate the organism's perception of probabilities and possible non-linearities in the assignment of likelihood. Various context-effects illustrate the potential difficulties associated with decision-making over options with multiple attributes. Where possible I illustrate the biological evaluation of the paradoxes discussed.