In the suboptimal-choice task, birds systematically choose the leaner but informative option (suboptimal) over the richer but non-informative option (optimal). The task has two variations. In the standard task, the optimal option includes two terminal link stimuli. In the original task, it includes a single terminal link stimulus. Two models, the temporal information account (Cunningham and Shahan, J Exp Psychol Anim Learn Cogn 44:1–22, 2018) and the ∆-∑ hypothesis (González et al., J Exp Anal Behav 113:591–608, 2020), presuppose that these procedures are equivalent, but no formal comparison is available. Here we test whether or not these procedures are functionally equivalent. One group of pigeons was trained with the standard procedure, another group with the original procedure, and a third group was trained with a hybrid of the other two (i.e., the two options were the optimal links of the standard and original procedures). Our findings indicate that the number of terminal link stimuli in the optimal option is inconsequential vis-à-vis choice. Moreover, our findings also indicate that latencies to respond are a sensitive metric of value and choice. As predicted by the Sequential Choice Model, we were able to predict simultaneous choices from the latencies of sequential choices and observed a substantial shortening of latencies during simultaneous choices.

在次优选择任务中，家禽会系统地选择较瘦但信息丰富的选项（次优），而不是较丰富但非信息性的选项（最优））。该任务有两个变体。在标准任务中，最佳选项包括两个终端链接刺激。在原始任务中，它包括单个终端链接刺激。两种模型，时间信息帐户（Cunningham和Shahan，J Exp Psychol Anim Learn Cogn 44：1-22，2018）和∆-∑假设（González等人，J Exp Anal Behav 113：591-608，2020） ，前提是这些过程是等效的，但是没有正式的比较可用。在这里，我们测试这些过程在功能上是否等效。一组鸽子接受了标准程序的培训，另一组接受了原始程序的培训，第三组接受了其他两组的混合训练（即，这两种选择是标准程序和原始程序的最佳链接）。我们的发现表明，最佳选择中的终端链接刺激数量与选择无关紧要。此外，我们的发现还表明，响应延迟是价值和选择的敏感指标。正如顺序选择模型所预测的那样，我们能够从顺序选择的延迟中预测同时进行的选择，并观察到同时选择期间的延迟显着缩短。