Cost does not prevent pigeons from investing in the future

One of the simplest forms of behavior, operant behavior, appears fundamentally prospective, implying potential similarity to ‘sophisticated’ prospective behaviors like planning in terms of underlying mechanisms. But differences between paradigms for studying behavior resulting from ‘simple’ versus ‘sophisticated’ mechanisms prevent true comparison of underlying mechanisms. To aid development of an operant paradigm with more similarity to ‘sophisticated’ prospective paradigms, we replicated and extended Cowie and Davison’s (2021) investing task. Pigeons were required to emit an investing response to ensure food at a different time and different response location. We asked if investing depended on whether the behavior was a single, discrete key peck (typical in operant paradigms) or an extended sequence of pecks (echoing behaviors in planning paradigms), and whether facilitative effects of an immediate stimulus change persisted when the stimulus change no longer occurred. Pigeons invested successfully whether investing required one or more responses, and for extended investing responses, performance did not worsen significantly with increasing response requirements. Experience investing with an immediate stimulus change did not enhance subsequent investing without the stimulus change. Findings show simple learning mechanisms can support extended activities with no immediate consequences. Further, they support the investing paradigm as a potential tool for investigations of overlap in mechanisms controlling ‘simple’ and ‘sophisticated’ behavior. •Operant behavior of pigeons was maintained by consequences that occurred at a distant time and different response location.•The behavior occurred less often when it involved an extended sequence of pecks than just a single peck.•Longer extended sequence requirements did not diminish the likelihood of the behavior.•Findings suggest overlap in the mechanisms underlying ‘simple’ operant behavior and ‘sophisticated’ prospective behaviors like planning.•The procedure used here shows promise as a species-general model for studying future-oriented choice, and for exploring similarities in the mechanisms controlling ‘simple’ and ‘sophisticated’ prospective control.