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Is matching innate?

C R Gallistel1, Adam Philip King, Daniel Gottlieb

  • 1Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA. galliste@ruccs.rutgers.edu

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
|May 1, 2007
PubMed
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Mice instinctively match their time spent at feeders to food availability, a behavior present from the start. This innate matching strategy influences foraging decisions and is modeled by tracking income changes.

Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Ecology
  • Animal Behavior
  • Foraging Theory

Background:

  • Optimal foraging theory predicts animals allocate time to maximize food intake.
  • Previous research explored factors influencing foraging decisions in animals.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if naive mice match temporal investment (visit duration) to food income proportions.
  • To determine if this matching behavior improves with training or is innate.
  • To explore the dynamics of investment when food income is directly proportional to time invested.

Main Methods:

  • Three experiments were conducted with naive mice and two feeding hoppers.
  • The coupling between behavioral investment and food income was varied (no coupling to strict coupling).
  • Temporal investments (visit durations) and food income (pellets per unit time) were recorded and analyzed.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Mice matched temporal investments to food income proportions from the outset, without improvement from training.
  • When income was proportional to investment, behavior showed unstable, abrupt switches between feeders.
  • This matching behavior suggests an innate program adjusting to perceived income streams.

Conclusions:

  • Mice exhibit innate matching of foraging time to food availability.
  • The observed instability under proportional returns constrains theoretical models.
  • A model detecting income changes explains key features of the observed matching behavior.