A Microanalysis of the Effect of Bodyweight on Operant Behaviour With Hens

Abstract

Motivating Operations (MOs) are frequently manipulated (by altering access to commodities and manipulating other variables such as body weight) in order to change responding. This study had two aims, firstly to investigate the effect of altering body weight on concurrent schedule performance of hens, secondly to investigate the effect of altering body weight on the time duration of each component of hens' pecks under these schedules when analysed from high speed videos filmed at 240 fps. Six hens (at 85% 5%) were shaped (three via the method of successive approximations and three via autoshaping) to respond for food reinforcers on an infra-red screen. Hens then responded under a range of concurrent VI VI schedules, with body weight held at 85% 5%, 95 5% and 100 5% over conditions. It was found that applying the Generalised Matching Law to the data did not result in any consistent differences in responding with the three body weights. However, response rates, inter-response times and video analysis of the individual components of the hens pecking responses did show consistent differences between responding at the three weights.