Does satiation close the open economy?
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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
Diana Posadas-Sánchez1, Peter R Killeen
1Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1104, USA. posadas@asu.edu
Abstract:
Pigeons responded on fixed-interval and fixed-ratio food schedules during sessions of extended duration. Pause lengths from the beginning of the session, when the subjects were hungry, resembled those found in open economies, whereas pause lengths from the end of the sessions, when the subjects were close to satiation, resembled those from closed economies. A model of motivation captured key features of the data, suggesting that a changing level of hunger is a causal factor in the behavioral differences observed between open and closed economies. Behavioral theories may provide a parsimonious alternative to economic theories in accounting for such effects.
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