Control over patch encounters changes foraging behaviour

Foraging is a common decision problem in natural environments. When new exploitable sites are always available, a simple optimal strategy is to leave a current site when its return falls below a single average reward rate. Here, we examined foraging in a more structured environment, with a limited number of sites that replenished at different rates and had to be revisited. When participants could choose sites, they visited fast-replenishing sites more often, left sites at higher levels of reward, and achieved a higher net reward rate. Decisions to exploit-or-leave a site were best explained with a computational model that included both the average reward rate for the environment and reward information about the unattended sites. This suggests that unattended sites influence leave decisions, in foraging environments where sites can be revisited. HighlightsO_LIBeing able to select sites during foraging increased visits to high value sites C_LIO_LIThis visitation pattern was efficient, producing higher average reward rates C_LIO_LIDecisions to leave a site were influenced by information about alternative sites C_LI Graphical Abstract O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=200 SRC="FIGDIR/small/426950v3_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (37K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@2e662org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@6352eaorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@d8aae7org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@bc60a6_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG