Pigeons excel at empirical probability!

[slyppi]

This link is to an article about a study published in last month's issue of the Journal of Comparative Psychology, where researchers demonstrated that pigeons are better than humans at solving the famed "Monty Hall problem."

To quote the article, "The so-called Monty Hall problem is a well-known puzzle named after the original host of the game show

Comments

[ejmam]

It's easier to see if you imagine there are ten doors. Remember that Monty knows where the prize is. You pick one door. He opens eight of the other doors. Do you stay with your door, or jump the the one door he chose not to open?

[slyppi]

Thank you so much! Someone else just said exactly the same thing, using 1,000,000 doors in his example. You're right--I was having a hard time understanding it with only three doors, but thinking about it with many more doors makes it so much clearer. :)

(I really should re-read Innumeracy, though, my understanding of probability and scale is pretty sub-par.)