Cognitive Model of Animal Behavior to Comprehend an Aspect of Decision‐Making

Most animal behaviors are considered to have been evolved through their own courses of natural selection. Since mechanisms of natural selection depend tightly on environments in which animals of interest inhabit, the environment for an animal appears a priori, and stimulus‐response (S‐R) relationships are stable as long as it returns constant benefit. We claim, however, no environment for an animal cannot be regarded as a priori and any animal can exhibit more elaborated behavior than S‐R. In other words, every animal is more or less cognitive in terms that it may modify a meaning of stimulus. We introduce a minimal model to demonstrate the cognitive aspect of the pill bug’s turn alternation (TA) behavior. The simulated pill bug can modify its own response pattern to the stimulus of water, though stable response appears to be prerequisite to TA behavior.