Consumer Demand

Question 1

What did Dawkins 1983, 1990 assert about consumer demand?

Answer 1

Once preferences and operant rewards have been established it is possible to determine how much value the animal places on them by making it pay a perceived price for example have ing to peck a key or push a lever many times to obtain the same reward.

Question 2

Define compensation or resilience

Answer 2

Animal works harder for the same amount of reward

Question 3

What are elastic and inelastic demand curves? Why are they useful?

Answer 3

inelastic - will use preferred resource same amount no matter what the price
elastic - use varies with cost
- Price elasticity = Ratio of % change in consumption to % change in price
> better indicator than just total time spent there eg. rooms in a house

Question 4

In human economics, what do humans demonstrate as elastic and inelastic demands?

Answer 4

Elastic - Veg

Inelastic - petrol, drugs, alcohol

Question 5

How do elasticity stidues work?

Answer 5

Change the “price” of something. Measure consumption

Question 6

What is income elasticity?

Answer 6

% change in demand in response to a change in Income eg. time or energy available to the animal for performing its entire behavioural repertoire

Question 7

Outline initial studies on elasticity

Answer 7

• operant taks
• contribution from experimental psychologists
• defined schedules of reinforcement
  > fixed ratio
  > fixed interval
  > variable ratio
  > variable interval
  > progressive ratio

Question 8

Give some operant studies on farm animals

Answer 8

Kilgour 1991 review
> Baldwin - light and heat preferences of pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, pigs. No attempt to look at increasing workload
> Fighting cocks worked on fixed ratio 25 schedule to look at themselves in a mirror or another cockerel. Not so stable on FR 75 regime.

Question 9

What did Lawrence and Illius 1989 study?

Answer 9

Rewards worked for per session with increasing time since being fed

Question 10

What did Mathews and Ladewig 1994 study?

Answer 10

Environmental requirements of pigs measured by behavioural demand function - opening doors

Question 11

What do baboons show preference for?

Answer 11

When total energy budget reduced, defend social behaviour over sleep

Question 12

What issues were raised regarding initial studies?

Answer 12

some combinations of response trained more easily than others
- hens learnt to keypeck for food but not dust bathe
How costly is a bar press/peck? - variation between individuals?
Use of natural obstacles

Question 13

What did Sherwin and Nicol 1995 study?

Answer 13

Closed economy, natural costs - shallow water/deep water/airstream. No cost return.

• found when cost increased reprioritisiation of behaviour occurred
• feed consumption stayed the same but number of crossings decreased dramatically

Question 14

What did Sherwin 1996 show?

Answer 14

With increasing length of water to traverse, decreasing number of visits, longer remained with resource

Question 15

What did Cooper and Appleby 1995 show?

Answer 15

Decreasing gap width -> less number of visits chickens to nest box but increasing duration spent in the box each time

Question 16

What would be predicted to be elastic/inelastic demands in animals?

Answer 16

Inelastic - nests

Elastic - wheel.. toys

Question 17

Give a study showing real animal consumers choice.

Answer 17

Sherwin and Nicol 1997 - Wont work hard for additional space (?)

Question 18

Wht did Houston 1997 argue?

Answer 18

Area under the curve better for comparison than slope of the curve
- if price measured as quantity obtained per unit (time/energy) then area under the curve can be compared between resources

Question 19

What is the break point?

Answer 19

Max cost at which consumption starts to decrease

Question 20

What did Mason 1998 argue? Who replied to this?

Answer 20

Animals should choose their own bout lengths - test in fully closed economies.
Cost AND resource use must vary if aim is to produce a demand curve
- animals should perceive costs equivalently for all resources
Mathews - no actual evidence that interrupted bouts are a problem
Income restriction difficult to apply without differential penalty (some activities take more time than others)

Question 21

What did Sumpter 1999 compare?

Answer 21

^ force to open door with ^ fixed ratio to obtain food
- different shaped demand curves
- noted that ^ FR increases time taken, whereas ^ force does not
> calculted “unit price” as a function of number AND force

Question 22

Holm 2002 - what did they find?

Answer 22

Calves often housed singly but will work for full contact/hea contact

Question 23

What did Jensen 2005 find?

Answer 23

Motivation for lying down in dairy cows

- lying time often compromised

Question 24

What did De Jong 2007 find?

Answer 24

Flatter demand curve (inelastic?) for peat moss than wood shavings/sand/wire

Question 25

What did Sondergaard 2011 look at?

Answer 25

Horses working for a reward on FR

Question 26

What did Jensen and Pedersen 2007 explain?

Answer 26

Accounting for substitutes - if some objects present may be less demand for others

Question 27

What has been shown about consumer demand wrt food?

Answer 27

• hens pay as much for access to nest as food after 20hrs food deprivation
• Hens pay 75% as much for access to perch at dusk than food after 24 hours deprivation
• pigs attach NO more importance to a day’s access to a group pen than to the last 1/16 of their ad lib food intake