"Superstitious' behavior in animals

The orang-utan and dog as well as the pigeon have shown "superstitious" behavior. It has appeared in conditioning and multiple-choice experiments. Interpreting such behavior as superstitious is mentalistic and anthropomorphic. "An alternate and less complicated interpretation would be that these activities--whether relevant or irrelevant to the solution of the problem--are ordinary instances of the association of a sequence of movements with a reinforcing stimulus."