When rate maximization is impulsive |
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Authors: | Theodore P Pavlic Kevin M Passino |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University, 2015 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA;(2) Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University, 318 W. 12th Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210, USA |
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Abstract: | Although optimal foraging theory predicts that natural selection should favor animal behaviors that maximize long-term rate
of gain, behaviors observed in the laboratory tend to be impulsive. In binary-choice experiments, despite the long-term gain
of each alternative, animals favor short handling times. Most explanations of this behavior suggest that there is hidden rationality
in impulsiveness. Instead, we suggest that simultaneous and mutually exclusive binary-choice encounters are often unnatural
and thus immune to the effects of natural selection. Using a simulation of an imperfect forager, we show how a simple strategy
(i.e., an intuitive model of animal behavior) that maximizes long-term rate of gain under natural conditions appears to be
impulsive under operant laboratory conditions. We then show how the accuracy of this model can be verified in the laboratory
by biasing subjects with a short pre-experiment ad libitum high-quality feeding period. We also show a similar behavioral
mechanism results in diet preferences that are qualitatively consistent with the digestive rate model of foraging (i.e., foraging
under digestive rate constraints). |
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