Social and asocial cues about new food: Cue reliability influences intake in rats

Abstract

Dietary generalists often treat new foods with caution and may rely on social cues to identify new foods that are safe to eat. However, not all generalists show the same degree of caution, nor do they all rely on social cues to the same extent. The cue reliability approach (CRA) attempts to account for this variation by quantifying the costs and benefits of sampling a new food for the first time. The experiments reported here tested predictions of the CRA, and the results suggested that rats eat more new food when asocial cues predict that new foods will prove more profitable than familiar foods. The experimental results also suggested that rats are more likely to seek out social cues when asocial cues are unreliable.