Study: Rats Regret Making the Wrong Decision

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Minnesota have discovered that rats in a decision making experiment showed three behaviors consistent with regret. David Redish and his graduate student Adam Steiner '...trained rats to do a task they call "restaurant row." The rat ran around a circle past a series of four spokes, each leading to a different flavor of food. As the rat came to the entrance of each spoke, a tone sounded that indicated how long it would have to wait to receive that specific flavor of food. The rat could choose whether to stay or go, depending on how much it liked that food and how long it would have to wait...The rats showed three behaviors consistent with regret. First, the rats only looked backwards in the regret conditions, and not in the disappointment conditions. Second, they were more likely to take a bad deal if they had just passed up a good deal. And third, instead of taking their time eating and then grooming themselves afterwards, the rats in the regret conditions wolfed down the food and immediately took off to the next restaurant.'"

Comments

Duh

[Shakrai]

I'm not sure which emotions would go through my mind as the boa constrictor tightened its grip, but I'd imagine regret would be among them.

Gods, it's awesome being on the top of the food chain....

Re:Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Really. Its a "food web", plenty of interactions between species. If you wanted to place any specie on the "top" of the food chain, it would be an apex preditor, which is not a very secure niche at all, any problem and the whole heap "simplifies", removing you first. (Tigers are endangered, phytoplankton, not so much)
        Level 1: Plants and algae make their own food and are called primary producers.
        Level 2: Herbivores eat plants and are called primary consumers.
        Level 3: Carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary consumers.
        Level 4: Carnivores that eat other carnivores are called tertiary consumers.
        Level 5: Apex predators that have no predators are at the top of the food chain.
  A team of French researchers set about calculating the human trophic level (HTL) for every country for which data is available, and their results were published in PNAS. They found that the global HTL average is 2.21, which puts the human diet on par with pigs and anchovies.
So we are slightly below the middle for the average diet.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexberezow/2013/12/03/humans-arent-at-the-top-of-the-food-chain/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_level

Re:Duh

[lgw]

Humans lived successfully in each region for millennia, and eventually learned to hunt just about anything. No firearm required. The shovel would have been an amazingly useful tool for the primitive man faced with a large aggressor, however. Now, sans firearm, it's just a matter of a tiger trap and patience.

Re:Duh

[ozmanjusri]

Now, sans firearm, it's just a matter of a tiger trap and patience.

In "Africa, a South American jungle, or the Arctic", that would geological-level patience...

Re:Duh

[Shakrai]

Go camping without a firearm in Africa, a South American jungle, or the Arctic to experience regret.

Why would I do that? That makes as much sense as my cat asking me to declaw and detooth her.

Not surprising

[The Grim Reefer]

It's not really that surprising. Rats are pretty smart. Especially compared to many other rodents. My daughter had a pet rat, it was pretty surprising how attached my wife got to it. We had originally planned to let her get two rats because they are very social and do better in pairs. But the one my daughter picked did not like other rats at all. The people at the pet store said that she got into some pretty nasty fights with any other rats, even the ones from her original litter. But she really craved human interaction. My daughter forgot to lock her cage once. It was within the first two week of her getting the rat. It was not even five minutes later that my wife looked down because she felt something on her foot. The rat almost immediately found my wife and was trying to climb her leg.

Food is the best way to train a rat. we noticed that the one my daughter had would often times turn down food it liked if it thought we had something else that it liked better. I don't think I've seen too many other animals that would do that.

Re:Not surprising

[sjwt]

My pet rat used to get out and play with the cat, kind of like a tag and hide game.. I dont know if they were playing the same game, but years later my brother had a Chihuahua and it used to play in the back yard with a wild rat.. it played tag some days for hours.. chasing after the rat, taping it, then running from it whilst it was being chased.. so funny..

Re:Not surprising

[shadowrat]

In a former life, i worked at a pet store. People would often come in looking for a hamster or gerbil. I'd say, "ok, but first let me show you these rats."

Most people balked at the idea. Every once in a while someone would recognize that spark of intelligence, friendliness and curiosity that makes them such wonderful pets. Those people who purchased a rat invariably came back to tell me what a wonderful pet it was. Often times they would come back for their next rat years later. By years, i of course mean just 2ish. The unfortunate thing about pet rats is they just don't live that long.

Re:Also known as "hungry"

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you're not spending much time writing grant appications these days.

Re:Wow.

[Arker]

"That means even a rat is more ethical/honorable than former U.S. president George W. Bush."

I have to disagree. There is no ethics or honor demonstrated here, simply regret over not getting a particular treat.

In order to be ethical or unethical you first must have the mental capability to frame ethical questions and grasp ethical concepts, and all evidence indicates rats and most if not all other animals on the planet cannot do that, so they can be neither ethical nor unethical. There is no point in accusing a rat of acting unethically, he is simply being a rat and if you expected anything else you are a fool.

Some would say the same is true of politicians.

Planescape Torment

[BurningTyger]

What can change the nature of a rat ?

Now we know scientifically it's regret (and not "Many-as-One")

Well, better than all the women I know

[goose-incarnated]

None of them are able to express regret at a bad decision ;-)

Re:Well, better than all the women I know

[MadKeithV]

None of them are able to express regret at a bad decision ;-)

Fool. Women don't make bad decisions - it's just that reality reacts badly.

Re:Corollary

[Trepidity]

You haven't see what a rat election looks like.

Study: Scientists play with rat's emotions

[ThatAblaze]

They have created a maze that inevitably leads to rats regretting their decisions, no matter what logic they use to make them. Do you know what this means? We've given rats a taste of politics!

Re:Wow.

[Kazoo the Clown]

That means even a rat is more ethical/honorable than former U.S. president George W. Bush.

Yeah, and every other politician too. And most of the mainstream media. Or maybe the latter is merely incompetent...