Collier, G., Johnson, D. F., & Morgan, C. (1997).
Meal patterns of cats encountering variable food procurement cost.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
67, 303-310.
The meal patterns of 2 cats in a laboratory habitat with variable
foraging costs were examined in a foraging paradigm in which
subjects could initiate meals at any time by completing a
predetermined number of bar presses (the procurement price) and
then could eat any amount. From meal to meal, the procurement
price either was fixed or varied among a geometric series of five
prices. As the fixed price or the mean of the variable prices
increased, meal frequency decreased and meal size increased;
daily intake was unaffected. Within variable-price schedules,
meal size was not related to the just-paid procurement price.
These results suggest that cats respond to the global rather than
to the local cost structure of their habitat. They appear to
respond to an average of the prices encountered, initiating meals
of a frequency and size appropriate to that average. This was
true even when the average price was high, meals were infrequent,
and thus price encounters were widely separated in time.
Therefore, the time window over which the consequences of
behavior can affect behavior is longer than often conceived, at
least in economies in which the animal controls its intake and
the frequency, size, and distribution of its meals.
Key words: food intake, meal frequency, meal size, foraging,
procurement cost, cat