Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Fractionating Choice: A Study On Reward Discrimination, Preference, And Relative Valuation In The Rat (Rattus Norvegicus), Joshua M. Ricker, Justin D. Hatch, Daniel D. Powers, Howard C. Cromwell

Psychology Faculty Publications

Choice behavior combines discrimination between distinctive outcomes, preference for specific outcomes and relative valuation of comparable outcomes. Previous work has focused on 1 component (i.e., preference) disregarding other influential processes that might provide a more complete understanding. Animal models of choice have been explored primarily utilizing extensive training, limited freedom for multiple decisions and sparse behavioral measures constrained to a single phase of motivated action. The present study used a paradigm that combines different elements of previous methods with the goal to distinguish among components of choice and explore how well components match predictions based on risk-sensitive foraging strategies. In …