Game Show Problem Applications

So, I've posted [fluggart.com] about The Monte Hall Problem [wikipedia.org] before. This is the counter-intuitive problem where you have the choice between a bunch doors, and no one ever believes that there is a strategy that will allow you to win more often then just choosing randomly.

I recently saw a New York Times article [nytimes.com] showing an application of this problem in real life. Honestly! Here's a quote from the article:

"The Yale psychologists first measured monkeys' preferences by observing how quickly each monkey sought out different colors of M&Ms. After identifying three colors preferred about equally by a monkey — say, red, blue and green — the researchers gave the monkey a choice between two of them."

"If the monkey chose, say, red over blue, it was next given a choice between blue and green. Nearly two-thirds of the time it rejected blue in favor of green, which seemed to jibe with the theory of choice rationalization: Once we reject something, we tell ourselves we never liked it anyway (and thereby spare ourselves the painfully dissonant thought that we made the wrong choice)."

"But Dr. Chen says that the monkey’s distaste for blue can be completely explained with statistics alone..."

"If so, then the monkey’s choice of red over blue wasn’t arbitrary. Like Monty Hall’s choice of which door to open to reveal a goat, the monkey’s choice of red over blue discloses information that changes the odds."