Has anyone determined whether = pigeons can differentiate between the colors Green and Red? Assumptions, = assumptions, assumptions.

Ed Gjertsen II

ed@macktracks.com

-----Original = Message-----
From: Gene Ricci [mailto:genr@swbell.net]
Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 10:06 = PM
To: My Friends
Subject: Puritanical = Pigeons

Puritanical Pigeons =

The Quotation … =

A beer never tastes as good as when you drag = yourself over a hilltop to get it. Jeans always look better when they cost a couple = of hundred dollars. The same is even true of university courses: the = chemistry you struggled with somehow seems more worthy than the Spanish you = coasted through. Social psychologists have tended to view this sort of twisted = logic as uniquely human – fobbing it off as “cultural”. = But a group of pigeons in Kentucky has now exploded the myth that humans alone have such a work ethic. They have = shown that even dumb birds tend to value hard-won rewards more than = freebies.

Thomas Zentall, a psychologist at the = University of Kentucky, was suspicious of the idea that humans were the only creatures to behave = in this way. With the help of a graduate student, Tricia Clement, he trained a = small band of pigeons to tap on a button if they wanted a snack. Sometimes = the pigeon had to tap only once, whereupon the button turned red and some = grain appeared. Other times, though, the pigeon had to tap a tiresome 20 = pecks before the light turned green and the grain was delivered. =

The pigeons soon learnt that the red button meant = one thing and the green quite another. But given the choice between them, = which would a pigeon go for? Classical theory suggests that the pigeon = should not really care; both buttons, after all,

preceded the same reward. If anything, a clever = pigeon would associate the red button with less work, and might prefer it. =

What Dr. Zentall and Ms. Clement found, however, = was quite the opposite. Pigeons, like humans, are tricked into thinking that = what they have worked hard for is actually better. They selected the green = button twice as often as the red one. The effort seemed, according to Dr. Zentall, = to make the grain more valuable. The phrase “bird-brained” somehow = comes winging irresistibly to mind.

- The Economist, August 5th, 2000

Innerworth Comment =
Beware, and be aware, that the rewards you reap from trading do not = increase in worth if the process of earning them involves unnecessary effort. Therefore you can trade smart when you accept that you can actually = work less, if you work smart. George Soros has talked about = “working” as little as possible. However, he is not talking about being lazy. = The following quote from Bill = Lipschutz in New Market Wizards describes the process:

By the way, when I talk about = working hard, I mean commitment and focus; it has nothing to do with how many = hours you spend in the office. These traders have tremendous commitment to = the markets – to their craft, so to speak. They develop scenarios, reevaluate scenarios, collect information, and reevalute that = information. They constantly ask themselves: what am I doing right? What am I doing = wrong? How can I do what I am doing better? How can I get more information? It’s obsessive.

-The New Market Wizards, by Jack Schwager, = p.63