Rationality in animal behavior: An illustration involving categorization and associative learning

Abstract

Benefits and complications arise when animal behavior is seen through a ‘rationality’ point of view. First, we refer to diverse ways in which the notion of rationality may play a heuristic role in driving both mechanistic and functional considerations of animal behavior. Second, as an example, we briefly describe an experiment where starlings showed an apparently irrational class preference reversal when choosing among food predicting stimuli (Schuck-Paim and Kacelnik 2007, Behav Ecol 18, 3, 541-550). This example serves to illustrate the reliance of rationality expectations on implicit assumptions, such as subjects’ ability to classify arbitrary stimuli as a function of their associated outcomes in the present case, which assessment is crucial to properly interpret results. Finally, we discuss some of the evidence of animal classification abilities, explore other behavioral processes that might have been involved in starlings’ preference reversal, such as associative learning, and pose a cautionary statement about claims of inherently irrational behavior.