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Motivationsmechanismen der optimalen Nahrungssuche: Eine neuartige Theorie und kritische Tests mit Tauben in einer halbnatürlichen Nahrungsumgebung

Antragsteller Patrick Anselme, Ph.D.
Fachliche Zuordnung Biologische Psychologie und Kognitive Neurowissenschaften
Förderung Förderung von 2019 bis 2023
Projektkennung Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 429226585
 
Erstellungsjahr 2023

Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse

In this project, we aimed to test the sensitivity of pigeons to reward uncertainty in a more natural context than a traditional Skinner box, as well as to explain the observed behavioral effects by means of appropriate psychological (motivational) theories. When pigeons have the opportunity to forage in relative freedom (no external control on food delivery), we found that reward uncertainty does not inhibit seeking behavior, contrary to what theoretical models often predict. • Animals tend to inspect richer food patches more than poorer food patches. But they do not disregard the latter. In total, they eat as much as they can, irrespective of whether cues in a patch are consistently or inconsistently associated with food items and whether the inconsistent patch is near or farer from the consistent patch. • More opportunities to peck for identical food availability (inconsistent hole-food pairings) tended to increase body weight and decreased the values of foraging variables such as the total number of pecks per hole, the propensity to revisit a hole, and the inspection of adjacent holes. The density distribution of pecks was also more homogeneous, less focused on the edges of the board. Although additional research is needed, these behaviors might indicate a lower stress level due to a lower perceived risk of competition when more opportunities to find food are present. • The investment of the pigeons per visit in a patch was not proportional to reinforcement density per hole, with behavioral investment being higher under partial reinforcement than under a more optimal condition. There was a high replicability of this result across the conducted experiments. • The pigeons’ propensity to invest more time and effort in the task of seeking locally unguaranteed food items in a patch is dependent on the information available about the depletion status of guaranteed food items in another patch. Overall, several of our results confirm the traditional view in animal ecology and psychology that pigeons, like other animal species, favor places associated with higher food densities. But our results also indicate that pigeons’ foraging decisions are not under control of reinforcement only. In some circumstances, pigeons invest more time and effort in patches with lower food densities. This can hardly been explain by conventional models, which suggest that a lower probability of food in a patch should make this patch less attractive. In contrast, our results indicate that pigeons ate the same amount of food in all types of patches. The conclusion we can draw is that their higher investment under partial reinforcement was the condition to find enough food in the low-density patches. This strategy can be seen as an adaptation to food scarcity in the environment. The perspective proposed here may contribute to orient current research and models in new directions. It also calls for a dialogue between research areas not used to interact, such as behavioral psychology and behavioral ecology.

Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)

 
 

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