{“title”:”Pigeons Choose Information Over Food Even When Searching Rather Than Choosing”,”html”:”In the world of behavioral science, few findings have proven as robust—or as puzzling—as the suboptimal choice phenomenon. When pigeons are given a simultaneous choice between two options, one that reliably predicts whether food is coming and another that pays out more food overall, the birds overwhelmingly choose information over reward. Now, new research published in the journal Animal Cognition has pushed this paradox into uncharted territory, testing whether the same irrational-seeming preference survives when animals are forced to search through options one at a time rather than simply pick between them.
The study, conducted by Marco Vasconcelos of the University of Aveiro, Cyrus Kirkman and Aaron P. Blaisdell of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Armando Machado of the University of Aveiro, is the first to systematically examine suboptimal choice in a sequential accept-reject framework. Rather than presenting two options side by side, the researchers asked a fundamentally different question: what happens when an animal encounters one option at a time and must decide whether to accept it or reject it in favor of an unseen alternative?
The experimental logic builds on the classic suboptimal choice paradigm, in which pigeons choose between two distinctially colored alternatives. One option, the informative or S+ alternative, leads to a stimulus that reliably signals whether food will or will not follow—providing perfect predictive information about the upcoming outcome. The other, the non-informative alternative, leads to stimuli that are equally likely to precede food regardless of the actual outcome. Although the informative option delivers food on only 50 percent of trials and the non-informative option delivers food on 75 percent of trials, pigeons in simultaneous choice tests consistently prefer the informative option, sacrificing overall reward for the psychological value of knowing what is coming.
What makes the new study remarkable is its methodological shift. In the sequential version of the task, pigeons first encountered one option—either the informative or the non-informative alternative—and were required to accept it, proceeding with that outcome, or reject it, which then delivered the alternative option instead. This structure transforms the task from a simple choice into a search problem, where each encountered option is evaluated in turn before a final decision is locked in. The researchers reasoned that if suboptimal preference is a genuine feature of the animal’s valuation system rather than an artifact of simultaneous presentation, it should also manifest in sequential contexts.
The results in the cost-free condition were striking. When rejecting an option carried no penalty other than delivering the alternative, pigeons overwhelmingly accepted the informative option whenever it appeared and just as overwhelmingly rejected the non-informative option, effectively routing themselves through the informative pathway at nearly every opportunity. The researchers then derived a preference score from these rejection patterns and found that it closely tracked the traditional choice-based preference score measured in standard simultaneous tests. The sequential measure was typically somewhat less extreme than the simultaneous one, but the overall pattern—the strong attraction to predictive information even at the cost of food—was unmistakably preserved.
But the story took a decisive turn when the researchers introduced a temporal cost to rejection. In this second phase, rejecting an option no longer came for free. Instead, each rejection incurred a fixed delay, and critically, the magnitude of that delay was adjusted across sessions based on each individual pigeon’s rejection rate. When the cost of rejection was zero or minimal, pigeons continued to reject the non-informative option and pursue the informative one. However, as the rejection delay grew longer, a clear shift emerged: pigeons increasingly accepted the non-informative option rather than paying the temporal price to search for the informative alternative.
The asymmetry in how the two options responded to cost is arguably the study’s most theoretically revealing finding. Rejection of the informative option remained rare throughout and was largely insensitive to the size of the delay. Pigeons accepted the informative option nearly unconditionally, whether rejection was free or expensive. Rejection of the non-informative option, by contrast, was highly sensitive to cost, declining steadily as the delay increased. This dissociation suggests that the two options were not being processed through a single, unitary valuation mechanism, but rather that their acceptance and rejection were governed by different underlying considerations.
The researchers interpret these patterns through the lens of rate-based foraging models, which hold that animals evaluate options not in isolation but in terms of their net contribution to overall feeding rate. Under this framework, the value of rejecting an option depends on the opportunity cost of doing so—the amount of food and time given up by postponing or forgoing the current offer. When rejection is free, the opportunity cost is low, and pigeons can indulge their strong preference for information without penalty. When rejection carries a delay, the opportunity cost rises, and the calculus shifts. At some point, the temporal price of searching for the informative option outweighs its subjective value, and the pigeon opts to simply accept the non-informative offer in front of it.
These findings carry significant implications for how scientists understand the suboptimal choice phenomenon. The persistence of information preference in a sequential search task confirms that the effect is not a quirk of simultaneous choice architecture but a deeper feature of how pigeons value predictive stimuli. At the same time, the sensitivity of rejection behavior to temporal cost demonstrates that the preference is not absolute: it flexes when the ecological price of information-seeking changes. This dual character—robust yet cost-sensitive—paints a more nuanced picture than either pure information-seeking or pure reward maximization alone would predict.
The work also connects to broader questions in behavioral ecology and foraging theory, where search-and-reject decisions are fundamental to how animals navigate patchy environments. Natural foragers rarely encounter all options simultaneously; they encounter opportunities sequentially and must decide at each step whether to exploit what is available or continue searching. By showing that the well-documented suboptimal choice effect extends into this ecologically realistic framework—and that it is modulated by the costs inherent in sequential search—the study bridges laboratory paradigms and natural foraging contexts. The research, supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and conducted with ethical approval from UCLA’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, demonstrates that the tension between information and reward is not confined to the simultaneous choice apparatus but shapes decisions in the very sequential structures that evolution built.
“,”excerpt”:”New research shows pigeons maintain their striking preference for informative options in sequential accept-reject decisions, but the preference bends when rejection carries a temporal cost.”,”subject”:”Suboptimal choice and information-seeking in pigeons during sequential accept-reject foraging decisions.”,”tags”:[“suboptimal choice”,”pigeons”,”sequential decisions”,”accept-reject paradigm”,”animal cognition”,”information seeking”,”foraging behavior”,”decision making”,”behavioral economics”,”Columba livia”,”opportunity cost”,”rate maximization”]}”””
The pigeons tested in the study were Columba livia, the same species that has served as the workhorse of comparative cognition for more than a century. Their long history in laboratory learning research makes them an ideal population for probing how valuation mechanisms respond to changes in task structure, since decades of prior work on timing, conditioning, and choice provide a rich theoretical backdrop against which new results can be interpreted.
The study moved through the peer-review process with notable speed. The manuscript was received in February 2026, revised in early June, accepted in late August, and published online on 10 September 2026 as an open access article, meaning that anyone can read, download, and share the full text under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. The authors note that the early-release version is citable and carries a permanent DOI, though it remains subject to editorial edits before the final Version of Record replaces it.
Financial and institutional support for the work came from several sources. The Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology provided funding through multiple grants, and Marco Vasconcelos received a Fulbright Grant for Scholars and Researchers for the 2022/2023 academic year, supported by the Luso-American Development Foundation. The collaboration itself spans two countries, with authors affiliated with the William James Center for Research at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
All procedures involving the animals were reviewed and approved by UCLA’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and the authors state that the work was conducted in strict accordance with national and international guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals. The authors also declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
The article is indexed under keywords that signal its interdisciplinary reach, including suboptimal choice, sequential choice, accept-reject decisions, foraging behavior, and Columba livia. Springer’s related-subject listings connect it to topics ranging from animal cognition and decision making to behavioral economics and operations research, reflecting the fact that questions about how organisms weigh information against reward resonate well beyond comparative psychology.
For readers who wish to examine the full experimental details, the article is available at its publisher’s site under DOI 10.1007/s10071-026-02101-0, with correspondence directed to Marco Vasconcelos. Because the paper is open access, the complete methods, results, and analyses can be consulted directly without subscription or payment.
Subject of Research: From choice to search: suboptimal preferences in sequential accept-reject decisions
Article Title: From choice to search: suboptimal preferences in sequential accept-reject decisions
Article References: Vasconcelos, M., Kirkman, C., Blaisdell, A. P., & Machado, A. (2026). From choice to search: suboptimal preferences in sequential accept-reject decisions. Animal Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-026-02101-0
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s10071-026-02101-0
Keywords: choice, search, suboptimal, preferences, sequential, accept-reject, decisions, scientific research
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Drew Townsend. (September 12, 2026). From choice to search: suboptimal preferences in sequential accept-reject decisions. Scienmag. https://scienmag.com/from-choice-to-search-suboptimal-preferences-in-sequential-accept-reject-decisions/
Drew Townsend. “From choice to search: suboptimal preferences in sequential accept-reject decisions.” Scienmag, 12 September 2026, https://scienmag.com/from-choice-to-search-suboptimal-preferences-in-sequential-accept-reject-decisions/. Accessed 12 September 2026.
Drew Townsend. “From choice to search: suboptimal preferences in sequential accept-reject decisions.” Scienmag. September 12, 2026. https://scienmag.com/from-choice-to-search-suboptimal-preferences-in-sequential-accept-reject-decisions/
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Tags: accept-rejectanimal cognition researchbehavioral experiments in animalsBehavioral sciencechoicechoice behavior in pigeonsdecision-making under uncertaintydecisionsimpact of sequential choicesinformation versus food rewardirrational preferences in animalspigeons decision-makingpreferencesScientific Researchsearchsearch behavior in animalssequentialsequential accept-reject choicessuboptimalsuboptimal choice phenomenon
