VALUE OF FOOD AGGREGATES

描述（改编自申请人摘要）：本申请 建议研究鸽子对不同食物量的选择， 了解食物价值是如何建立的， 关于食物量的信息被处理并采取行动。前两个 实验旨在理解心理物理尺度， 是食物信息处理的基础。 不同的食物来源与 将研究使用剩余时间范例的固定食物来源。 通过操纵喂食器， 访问持续时间。 结果将根据几个方面进行分析。 理论账户 实验3将测试的通用性 结果从剩下的时间范式到另一个选择程序， 滴定设计 实验4和5将研究 变量期权的不同概率结构。三种不同 为项目的最后阶段提出了研究方向。 的 第一个将分析食物价值归因的情况下， 由离散的项目组成，而不是连续的馈线接入。 的 第二行将调查哪种货币的动物使用， 重视食物。 使用小球的实验将使用不同的 能量含量作为不同的奖励幅度，以分离 食物奖赏的时间和数量特征。 第三个也是最后 线将扩展实验2和4的结果的情况下， 存在具有复杂概率分布的可变期权。

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from applicant's abstract): This application proposes to study pigeons' choice for variable food magnitude in order to understand how food value is established and how variable information about food magnitude is processed and acted upon.The first two experiments are directed at understanding the psychophysical scale that underlies food information processing. Variable food sources versus fixed food sources using the time-left paradigm will be investigated. Variability in food magnitude will be introduced by manipulating feeder access duration. The results will be analyzed in light of several theoretical accounts. Experiment 3 will test the generality of the findings from the time-left paradigm to another choice procedure, a titration design. Experiments 4 and 5 will study the effects of differing probability structures for the variable option. Three different lines of research are proposed for the final stages of the project. The first one will analyze food value attribution in a situation where food consist of discrete items, rather than a continuous feeder access. The second line will investigate which kind of currencies animals use to value food. Experiments using pellets will be conducted with different energetic content as different reward magnitudes, in order to separate temporal and quantitative features of food reward. The third and last line will extend the findings of experiments 2 and 4 to a situation where there are variable options with complex probability distributions.