ABSTRACT
Foraging behavior has become a popular topic of study for two important reasons. First, most if not all laboratory findings of behavioristically oriented psychologists can be tested in the foraging context. Understanding learning experiments on the basis of ecological considerations has become an important concern for a number of researchers (e.g., Baum, 1983; Domjan, 1983; Johnston & Turvey, 1980; Kamil & Yoerg, 1982). Foraging has heuristic value because it provides an ecologically relevant context for categorizing, through analogy, many of the phenomena studied in the laboratory. Second, optimal-foraging theory (OFT) provides the researcher with a means of quantitatively predicting and evaluating the responses of a forager to various problems encountered in the environment. A biologically based theory capable of predicting an individual organism’s behavior needs an empirical test that will utilize the highly developed techniques of the behavioral laboratory.
