Associative learning explains “intuitive statistics” in animals.

2026/06/22 by Stefano Ghirlanda, Janelle Mendoza · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Memory and Neural Mechanisms #Child and Animal Learning Development #Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs

paper · doi:10.1037/rev0000626

Abstract

We review 58 experiments about "intuitive statistics" in mammals and birds, which investigate the animals' ability to make productive decisions when actions have probabilistic outcomes. We show that a stimulus-response associative model closely mirrors the animals' choices. The model reproduces qualitatively all results, and it accounts for an average 88% of the variance in 10 quantitative fits to data from 37 experiments with birds and mammals. The unexplained variance does not indicate processes more sophisticated than stimulus-response learning, as it either lies within measurement error or derives from animals making more mistakes than the stimulus-response model. These results confirm that associative learning models are a powerful tool in animal cognition research, often capable of unmatched quantitative accuracy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Discussions

• Solid rejection of "counting" and "statistical inference" abilities in nonhuman animals, from crows to chimps & pigeons. #animalcognition "associative learning models are a powerful tool in animal c [bsky, 15 points, 0 comments]

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