{"pk":5203,"title":"Are Monkeys Sensitive to the Regularity of Pay-off?","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Animals commonly face fluctuations in their environment and resources. To maximize their benefits,they need to integrate the risks attached to potential pay-offs. We do not know, however, to what extent individuals account for irregularity in the latter. We tested the sensitivity of monkeys (\nCebusapella, Macaca tonkeana, M. fascicularis\n) to the irregularity of pay-offs in two different tasks. In a first experiment, the subjects were given an exchange task where the reward probability varied between different conditions, but yielded the same average pay-off. There was no evidence of subjects favoring either condition, meaning that they behaved in accordance with the predictions ofthe classical decision theory (Expected Utility Theory). In a second experiment, we offered to subjects a choice between two options involving different pay-off regularity. In this case, a wide range of inter-individual variation was found in the choices of individuals. Whereas monkeys accepted irregular pay-off in a rational way, there were individual biases in their preferences. These results indicate that the preferences of animals in a risky situation were not unequivocally shaped by the environment in which species have evolved.","language":"en","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0","short_name":"CC BY 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\r\n\r\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"International Journal of Comparative Psychology, Behavior, Behaviour, Communication, Vocalization, Comparative Psychology, Behavioral Taxonomy, Cognition, Cognitive Processes, Utility, Payoff, Risk .."}],"section":"Research Article","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/32k5r8vw","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Sophie","middle_name":"","last_name":"Steelandt","name_suffix":"","institution":"Université de Strasbourg","department":"None"},{"first_name":"Marie-Hélène","middle_name":"","last_name":"Broihanne","name_suffix":"","institution":"Université de Strasbourg","department":"None"},{"first_name":"Bernard","middle_name":"","last_name":"Thierry","name_suffix":"","institution":"Université de Strasbourg","department":"None"}],"date_submitted":"2013-11-10T03:00:17Z","date_accepted":"2013-11-10T03:00:17Z","date_published":"2011-08-01T07:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"","type":"","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/uclapsych_ijcp/article/5203/galley/3083/download/"}]}