Who is in charge? Animal vs experimenter control

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Ecology
• Animal Psychology
• Foraging Behavior

Background:

• Curt Richter identified the determinants of behavior initiation and termination as a central psychological problem in the 1920s.
• Traditional animal psychology experiments use a session paradigm, limiting animals' control over behavior and preventing Richter's problem from being addressed.
• This paradigm involves brief work sessions for deprived resources, where experimenters control bout beginnings and ends.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address Curt Richter's challenge by investigating the determinants of behavior initiation and termination.
• To explore how animals regulate intake and exhibit behavioral strategies in a simulated natural habitat.
• To provide an answer to Richter's question using a cost/benefit analysis of feeding behavior.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing a free-feeding, closed economy paradigm where animals control feeding initiation and termination.
• Modifying the paradigm to simulate discontinuous resource distribution requiring work for access.
• Applying a cost/benefit analysis to feeding behavior within this foraging paradigm.

Main Results:

• Resource acquisition and consumption costs significantly determine resource use patterns.
• Costs of acquisition reduce bout initiation frequency; consumption costs alter consumption rate and amount.
• Behavioral regulation of intake is influenced by the economics of time and effort allocation.

Conclusions:

• The discontinuous distribution of resources, not physiological cycles, drives the recurrent nature of behavior.
• The economics of allocating time and effort to different resources and activities determine bout initiation and termination.
• Cost/benefit analysis in foraging paradigms offers insights into behavioral regulation and Richter's central problem.