Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 12, 2025
12:09
Studying Food Reward and Motivation in Humans
Published on: March 19, 2014
23.4K
Information gathering explains decision dynamics during human and monkey reward foraging.
Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology
|October 31, 2023
Summary
Humans and monkeys overharvest resources, staying too long in depleting patches. A new model explains this foraging behavior by integrating current and declining reward information.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral economics
- Animal behavior
- Cognitive neuroscience
Background:
- Optimal foraging theories predict efficient resource exploitation.
- Deviations, such as overharvesting, are common in animal and human foraging.
- Understanding the computational basis of these deviations is crucial.
Approach:
- Modeled human foraging behavior in a virtual patch-leaving task.
- Validated findings in monkeys performing an analogous foraging task.
- Developed a computational model integrating current and declining reward information.
Key Points:
- Both humans and monkeys exhibited overharvesting, staying longer in patches with longer travel times.
- Patch residence times decreased over sessions, improving reward rates in humans.
- A logistic transformation model accurately predicted foraging decisions.
Conclusions:
- A parsimonious model explains overharvesting by incorporating information about declining rewards.
- This highlights the role of information gathering in overcoming foraging dilemmas.
- Behavioral modeling reveals motivations behind seemingly irrational foraging decisions.
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