Timing Mechanisms in Optimal Foraging: Some Applications of Scalar Expectancy Theory

Abstract

Uncertainty and its effects on optimal foraging predictions have been extensively discussed (for a review see Stephens & Krebs 1986). Uncertainty has usually been assumed to result from stochastic properties of the environment (Caraco 1980; McNamara & Houston 1980) or from transient incomplete knowledge while learning proceeds (Krebs, Kacelnik & Taylor 1978; McNamara & Houston 1985; Shettleworth, Krebs, Stephens & Gibbon 1988). Nevertheless, uncertainty in foraging may in addition originate from intrinsic properties of the predator’s information-processing capabilities. Here we consider foraging problems of ambiguity in the psychological system responsible for the perception, storage and retrieval of information about the duration of time intervals.