Does package size matter? a unit-price analysis of “demand” for food in baboons.
In a study examining “demand” for food, responding of 8 adult male baboons (Papio c. anubis) was maintained under a fixed-ratio schedule of food reinforcement during daily 23-hr experimental sessions. Completion of the ratio requirement resulted in the delivery of one, five, or 10 1-g food pellets....
| Publicado en: | Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior Vol. 62; pp. 293 - 307 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
September 1994
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=512513428&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 512513428 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00225002 JOE jtl: Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior issn: 00225002 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: September 1994 vid: 62 pid: 508 pub: Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior artinfo: ui: 512513428 10.1901/jeab.1994.62-293 ppf: 293 ppct: 14 formats: tig: atl: Does package size matter? a unit-price analysis of “demand” for food in baboons. aug: au: Foltin, Richard W. su: Animal feeding behavior Baboon behavior Reinforcement (Psychology) Psychology Economics sug: subj: Animal feeding behavior Baboon behavior Reinforcement (Psychology) Psychology Economics ab: In a study examining “demand” for food, responding of 8 adult male baboons (Papio c. anubis) was maintained under a fixed-ratio schedule of food reinforcement during daily 23-hr experimental sessions. Completion of the ratio requirement resulted in the delivery of one, five, or 10 1-g food pellets. Supplemental feeding was limited to fruit and a dog biscuit daily. Responding increased as “cost” was increased across a wide range of fixed-ratio values before reaching a maximum and then decreasing. Increasing the number of food pellets per delivery decreased total responding and the number of reinforcements per day. A unit-price analysis, in which intake was converted to grams per day and fixed-ratio values were converted to responses per gram, yielded demand functions that overlapped at lower unit prices. Under one or more multiple-pellet conditions, however, intake decreased more quickly than under the one-pellet condition as the fixed-ratio value was increased in all but 1 baboon. This indicates that even when using unit-price conversions, there was variability in total intake. Although unit-price conversions yielded intake data that were more consistent across conditions, conditions differed in response topography even at the same unit prices: Under the multiple-pellet conditions there were longer pauses in responding, running response rate was slower, and the first eating bout (i.e., “meal”) of the session was smaller than under the one-pellet condition. These findings (a) support the heuristic value of a unit-price analysis for studying responding for and consumption of commodities that have similar attributes, and (b) indicate that different response topographies may result in similar intakes of a commodity. Copyright 1994 by the Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Inc. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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