Information Processing by Pigeons (Columba livia): Incentive as Information

Experiment 1 showed that the Hick-Hyman law ( W. E. Hick, 1952 ; R. Hyman, 1953 ) described the effects of anticipated reinforcement, a form of incentive, on pigeons' ( Columba livia ) reaction time to respond to a target spatial location. Reaction time was an approximately linear function of amount of information interpreted as probability of reinforcement, implying that pigeons processed incentive at a constant rate. Experiment 2 showed that the Hick-Hyman law described effects of incentive even when it varied from moment to moment in a serial reaction time task similar to that of M. J. Nissen and P. Bullemer (1987) , and processing information about target spatial location modulated absolute reaction time and not rate of processing incentive. The results support mental continuity and provide comparative support for the idea of the economics of information in economic theory about the incentive value of information.