Decision-Making in the Wild: Urgency and Complexity Drive Feeding Decision Speed and the Likelihood of Revising a Choice in a Sex-Dependent Manner in Great Tit (Parus major) Parents

TY - JOUR

T1 - Decision-Making in the Wild

T2 - Urgency and Complexity Drive Feeding Decision Speed and the Likelihood of Revising a Choice in a Sex-Dependent Manner in Great Tit (Parus major) Parents

AU - Caro, Shana M.

AU - Villareal, Rebeca M.

AU - Velasco, Adara C.

AU - van Mastrigt, Tjomme

AU - van Oers, Kees

AU - Hinde, Camilla A.

AU - Hofmann, Hans A.

N1 - Data archiving: no NIOO data

PY - 2026/3/24

Y1 - 2026/3/24

N2 - Deciding which offspring to feed is one of the most critical decisions parents make for both parental and offspring fitness. Despite knowing much about what choices parents make, we know little about how parents choose. What we do know about how the brain integrates sensory evidence when choosing between options comes from laboratory studies and models. However, such studies may not adequately reflect decisions made in nature—with real-world complexity and consequences. Our naturalistic experiment on decision-making in 62 wild Parus major parents addresses this issue. Decision speed was impacted by whether parents chose to feed a typically preferred chick, offspring starvation risk, decision complexity, and parental sex. Parents regularly moved food between chicks before committing, suggesting that parents perhaps were not confident in their initial decision, had made a mistake, were continuing to collect evidence, or could not execute their initial decision. Such decision changes were predicted by similar factors as speed. After moving food, parents were more likely to continue gathering evidence after their decision, and their next decision was slower. These results demonstrate several factors impacting cognition, and perhaps metacognition, in wild birds. More broadly, our study demonstrates how crucial evolutionarily relevant experiments in natural settings are.

AB - Deciding which offspring to feed is one of the most critical decisions parents make for both parental and offspring fitness. Despite knowing much about what choices parents make, we know little about how parents choose. What we do know about how the brain integrates sensory evidence when choosing between options comes from laboratory studies and models. However, such studies may not adequately reflect decisions made in nature—with real-world complexity and consequences. Our naturalistic experiment on decision-making in 62 wild Parus major parents addresses this issue. Decision speed was impacted by whether parents chose to feed a typically preferred chick, offspring starvation risk, decision complexity, and parental sex. Parents regularly moved food between chicks before committing, suggesting that parents perhaps were not confident in their initial decision, had made a mistake, were continuing to collect evidence, or could not execute their initial decision. Such decision changes were predicted by similar factors as speed. After moving food, parents were more likely to continue gathering evidence after their decision, and their next decision was slower. These results demonstrate several factors impacting cognition, and perhaps metacognition, in wild birds. More broadly, our study demonstrates how crucial evolutionarily relevant experiments in natural settings are.

KW - confidence

KW - decision-making

KW - error detection

KW - parental care

KW - speed-accuracy trade-off

KW - urgency gating

U2 - 10.1086/738498

DO - 10.1086/738498

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105034920518

SN - 0003-0147

VL - 207

SP - 728

EP - 750

JO - American Naturalist

JF - American Naturalist

IS - 5

ER -