Residence time in concurrent foraging with fixed times to prey arrival.
Pigeons run two timing rules side-by-side: quick checks watch the other patch, long stays track local payoff.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched six pigeons in a big chamber with two keys. Each key was a "patch."
Food could arrive on either key at fixed times. The birds chose how long to stay before switching.
Sessions lasted until the bird stopped pecking for five minutes. No limits on time or food.
What they found
Birds showed two clear stay lengths: quick hops of 1-3 s and long sits of 10-30 s.
Long sits matched the local food timing on that key. Quick hops tracked what was happening on the other key.
The split pattern stayed stable for months, showing two timing rules running at once.
How this fits with other research
Garcia et al. (1999) later showed that session length, not economy type, drives long stays. Their longer sessions looked like the target's long mode, tying the two papers together.
Szempruch et al. (1993) found pigeons weigh recent and frequent intervals more than the last one. The target's short-mode hops fit this recency rule, while long mode fits a local clock.
Sutphin et al. (1998) switched to rats and cost instead of timing. Both studies show animals hold two rules: one for quick checks, one for deep dives.
Why it matters
Your client may also run two rules at once. Quick scans check other options; long stays exploit a rich patch. When you see fast switching, look at what the other side offers. When you see long engagement, check the local payoff rate. Design schedules that give clear timing cues so the learner knows which rule to use.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Five pigeons were trained in a concurrent foraging procedure in which reinforcers were occasionally available after fixed times in two discriminated patches. In Part 1 of the experiment, the fixed times summed to 10 s, and were individually varied between 1 and 9 s over five conditions, with the probability of a reinforcer being delivered at the fixed times always .5. In Part 2, both fixed times were 5 s, and the probabilities of food delivery were varied over conditions, always summing to 1.0. In Parts 3 and 4, one fixed time was kept constant (Part 3, 3 s; Part 4, 7 s) while the other fixed time was varied from 1 s to 15 s. Median residence times in both patches increased with increases in the food‐arrival times in either patch, but increased considerably more strongly in the patch in which the arrival time was increased. However, when arrival times were very different in the two patches, residence time in the longer arrival‐time patch often decreased. Patch residence also increased with increasing probability of reinforcement, but again tended to fall when one probability was much larger than the other. A detailed analysis of residence times showed that these comprised two distributions, one around a shorter mode that remained constant with changes in arrival times, and one around a longer mode that monotonically increased with increasing arrival time. The frequency of shorter residence times appeared to be controlled by the probability of, and arrival time of, reinforcers in the alternative patch. The frequency of longer residence times was controlled directly by the arrival time of reinforcers in a patch, but not by the probability of reinforcers in a patch. The environmental variables that control both staying in a patch and exiting from a patch need to be understood in the study both of timing processes and of foraging.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1997 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1997.67-161