The integration of normative and descriptive analyses of decision processes in humans struggles with the fact that measuring preferences by different procedures yields different rankings and that humans appear irrationally impulsive (namely, show maladaptive preference for immediacy). Failure of procedure invariance has led to the widespread hypothesis that preferences are constructed “on the spot” by cognitive evaluations performed at choice time, implying that choices should take extra time in order to perform the necessary comparisons. We examine this issue in experiments with starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) and show that integrating normative and descriptive arguments is possible and may help reinterpreting human decision results. Our main findings are that (1) ranking alternatives through direct rating (response time) accurately predicts preference in choice, overcoming failures of procedure invariance; (2) preference is not constructed at choice time nor does it involve extra time (we show that the opposite is true); and (3) starlings’ choices are not irrationally impulsive but are instead directly interpretable in terms of profitability ranking. Like all nonhuman research, our protocols examine decisions by experience rather than by description, and hence support the conjecture that irrationalities that prevail in research with humans may not be observed in decisions by experience protocols.

人类决策过程的规范性和描述性分析的整合与这样一个事实斗争，即通过不同的程序来衡量偏好会产生不同的排名，并且人类显得非理性冲动（即对即时性表现出适应不良的偏好）。程序不变性的失败导致了广泛的假设，即偏好是通过在选择时进行的认知评估“当场”构建的，这意味着选择应该花费额外的时间来进行必要的比较。我们在椋鸟（Sturnus vulgaris）的实验中研究了这个问题) 并表明整合规范性和描述性论点是可能的，并且可能有助于重新解释人类决策结果。我们的主要发现是：（1）通过直接评级（响应时间）对备选方案进行排序，准确预测了选择偏好，克服了过程不变性的失败；(2) 偏好不是在选择时间构建的，也不涉及额外的时间（我们证明反之亦然）；(3) 椋鸟的选择不是非理性的冲动，而是可以直接根据盈利能力排名来解释。像所有非人类研究一样，我们的协议通过经验而不是通过描述来检查决策，因此支持这样一种猜想，即在人类研究中普遍存在的非理性可能不会在经验协议的决策中观察到。