RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 State-Dependent Learned Valuation Drives Choice in an Invertebrate
JF Science
JO Science
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP 1613
OP 1615
DO 10.1126/science.1123924
VO 311
IS 5767
A1 Pompilio, Lorena
A1 Kacelnik, Alex
A1 Behmer, Spencer T.
YR 2006
UL http://science.sciencemag.org/content/311/5767/1613.abstract
AB Humans and other vertebrates occasionally show a preference for items remembered to be costly or experienced when the subject was in a poor condition (this is known as a sunk-costs fallacy or state-dependent valuation). Whether these mechanisms shared across vertebrates are the result of convergence toward an adaptive solution or evolutionary relicts reflecting common ancestral traits is unknown. Here we show that state-dependent valuation also occurs in an invertebrate, the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria (Orthoptera: Acrididae). Given the latter's phylogenetic and neurobiological distance from those groups in which the phenomenon was already known, we suggest that state-dependent valuation mechanisms are probably ecologically rational solutions to widespread problems of choice.