Nicol, C. J.

Sherwin, C. M.

English

WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)

WellBeing International WBI Studies Repository 1998 A demanding task: using economic techniques to assess animal priorities. A reply to Mason et al. C. M. Sherwin University of Bristol C. J. Nicol University of Bristol Follow this and additional works at: https://www.wellbeingintlstudiesrepository.org/ecoawel  Part of the Animal Studies Commons, Other Anthropology Commons, and the Other Economics Commons Recommended Citation Mason, G., Mcfarland, D., & Garner, J. (1998). A demanding task: using economic techniques to assess animal priorities. This material is brought to you for free and open access by WellBeing International. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of the WBI Studies Repository. For more information, please contact wbisr-info@wellbeingintl.org. Anim. Behav., 1998, 55, 1079–1081A demanding task: using economic techniques to assess animal priorities.A reply to Mason et al.C. M. SHERWIN & C. J. NICOLDivision of Animal Health and Husbandry, Department of Clinical Veterinary Science,University of Bristol(Received 7 July 1997; accepted 30 September 1997; MS. number: -1113)It is gratifying to see in a timely paper, thatMason et al. (1998) concur with many of theconcerns we and other workers have raisedregarding the methodology and interpretation ofconsumer demand studies. Their commentary is auseful synopsis of the multifarious problems ofthis area and includes practical suggestions forsolutions which they regard as appropriate forovercoming these.Some of the comments made by Mason et al.(1998) are perhaps possible only with the benefitof hindsight. When demand theory was first pro-posed as a method of measuring motivation, littlethought was given to which aspect of behaviourshould be considered as the most important. Itwas implicitly assumed that total duration of abehaviour, or time spent with a resource, wouldbe the best measure. It is only after detailedstudies were conducted over several 24-h periods(e.g. Sherwin & Nicol 1996) that it was determinedother aspects of behaviour, for example, fre-quency or regularity, were also important andcould be defended even at the expense of duration.Indeed, the rescheduling of behaviour is of con-siderable interest. Its occurrence is not necessarilya failing of the methodology, as implied by Masonet al. (1998) in their statement that rescheduling offeeding-bout length does not reflect the import-ance of feed. Rather, if an animal visits a resourcehalf as frequently as before and makes each visitlast twice as long, it is telling us something import-ant. Mason et al. (1998) have already argued thatbout length is important and in order to stay twiceas long with food, the animal must accept areduction in its ability to schedule other behav-iours optimally. Methodology in this area is at anearly stage of development and we are thereforepleased that Mason et al. (1998) approve of ourattempts to assess a variety of methods andmeasurements.The four alternative solutions suggested byMason et al. (1998) as appropriate for measuringbehavioural priorities do not overcome all theproblems they raise in their commentary. Indeed,three of the four solutions cannot be used togenerate demand curves. We discuss these solu-tions in the order presented by Mason et al.(1998). It is difficult to see how a method thatrequires extended bouts of lever-pressing to buildup stocks of reward will be valid or practicable.First, training an animal with an accruementmethod would require a low contingency; wepredict this would make training the animal verydifficult, perhaps impossible. Second, if an animalwas trained conventionally, it would be perform-ing the required operant task (the cost) to carryout a single bout of the desired behaviour accord-ing to the reinforcement schedule to which ithas been trained: it would not be expecting thecontingency to be broken by the experimenteraccruing stocks of the reward: this methodclearly prevents the animal from scheduling itsown behaviour thereby contravening guideline 1.Moreover, it is likely that breaking the con-tingency will lead to extinction of the response.This problem also relates to guideline 3 whichsuggests that the price paid and the amount ofresource used must co-vary. We do not believe it isalways possible to set up a system that allows theprice paid and amount consumed to co-vary in theway required to measure elasticity of demand assuggested by Mason et al. (1998). Consider abehaviour in which satiety is achieved only at theend of a single bout, and the animal will workrepeatedly only when it can complete the bout toachieve satiety (possible examples include mating,Corresponence: C. M. Sherwin, Division of AnimalHealth and Husbandry, Department of Clinical Veteri-nary Science, Langford House, Langford, BS18 7DU,U.K.0003–3472/98/041079+03 $25.00/0/ar970694 ? 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour1079

A demanding task: using economic techniques to assess animal priorities. A reply to Mason et al.

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A demanding task: using economic techniques to assess animal priorities. A reply to Mason et al.

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