ABSTRACT
Evidence for interval timing in animals has mostly been published in the psychological literature, and it is psychologists that have been responsible for setting the agenda in research on interval timing. The final piece of evidence linking timing with foraging comes from the observation that the majority of the comparative evidence for interval timing comes from animals performing on fixed-interval schedules of reinforcement in which food is used as the reinforcer. The optimal strategy in a subject trying to maximize the frequency with which it receives food while minimizing the number of responses it has to make when faced with fixed-interval schedule is to time the fixed interval and make a single response as soon as the interval has elapsed. Optimal foraging theory is the branch of behavioral ecology that seeks to understand how natural selection has shaped foraging behavior.
