University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

About: University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire is a education organization based out in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poison control & Population. The organization has 1780 authors who have published 2690 publications receiving 93094 citations. The organization is also known as: UW-Eau Claire & University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Human group choice: discrete-trial and free-operant tests of the ideal free distribution.

Abstract: Ideal free distribution theory predicts that foragers will form groups proportional in number to the resources available in alternative resource sites or patches, a phenomenon termed habitat matching. Three experiments tested this prediction with college students in discrete-trial simulations and a free-operant simulation. Sensitivity to differences in programmed reinforcement rates was quantified by using the sensitivity parameter of the generalized matching law (s). The first experiment, replicating prior published experiments, produced a greater degree of undermatching for the initial choice (s = 0.59) compared to final choices (s = 0.86). The second experiment, which extended prior findings by allowing only one choice per trial, produced comparable undermatching (s = 0.82). The third experiment used free-operant procedures more typical of laboratory studies of habitat matching with other species and produced the most undermatching (s = 0.71). The results of these experiments replicated previous results with human groups, supported predictions of the ideal free distribution, and suggested that undermatching represents a systematic deviation from the ideal free distribution. These results are consistent with a melioration account of individual behavior as the basis for group choice.