{
"metadata": {
"name": "Animal Foraging and the Evolution of Goal-Directed Cognition"
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"#Animal Foraging and the Evolution of Goal-Directed Cognition\n",
"\n",
"###Materials by Randal S. Olson\n",
"\n",
"All code in this notebook is usable under the terms of the BSD license.\n",
"\n",
"This entire notebook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.\n",
"\n",
"\n",
"\n",
"
"
]
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"cell_type": "markdown",
"metadata": {},
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"In this 2006 paper, Thomas Hills explored the evolution of an optimal foraging behavior called area-restricted search (ARS):\n",
"\n",
">ARS is characterized by a concentration of searching effort around areas where rewards in\n",
"the form of specific resources have been found in the past. When resources are encountered\n",
"less frequently, behavior changes such that the search becomes less sensitive, but covers more\n",
"space. In an ecological context, animals using ARS will turn more frequently following an\n",
"encounter with food, restricting their search around the area where food was last encountered. As\n",
"the period of time since the last food encounter increases, animals turn less frequently and\n",
"begin to move away, following a more linear path. Fig. 1 allows you to experience ARS in a visual\n",
"search task (read the directions please).\n",
"\n",
"