Abstract
Two pigeons were tested in an environment in which they lived and earned all food. The procedure was one which had been used in a previous experiment and was an analogue of gambling. On a trial a bird had a choice between a “sure thing” (FR 30) or a gamble. If the bird chose the gamble, it was either given five FR 10s (p =.10) or a time-out (p =.90). The duration of the time-out was varied from 1 min to 30 min. The experiment showed that gambling was sustained in the closed economy under conditions which had previously been reported (Kendall, 1987) and that the duration of the time-out for an open economy had very little effect on the amount of gambling. Both birds suffered large reinforcement losses under the longer time-outs.
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Kendall, S.B. Risk-Taking Behavior of Pigeons in a Closed Economy. Psychol Rec 39, 211–220 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395064
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395064