Measuring Relative Value Through Cross-Modal Scaling of Two or More Reinforcers

Degree awarded: M.A. Psychology. American UniversityTufted capuchins (Cebus apella) were given pairwise choices in four separate scenarios: fruit A vs fruit B, X amount of cereal vs. fruit A, Y amount of cereal vs. fruit B, and X amount of cereal vs. Y amount of cereal. X and Y were adjusted until an indifference point was reached, equating X amount of cereal with fruit A and Y amount of cereal with fruit B. Choices between goods that shared many attributes (substitutes) produced nearly absolute preference. Choices involving the cereal scaled to the fruits, however, produced modest preferences not attributable to substitutability. These results suggest that cross-modal scaling of two similar goods to a third reinforcer may be a more accurate test than simple preference tests when defining value between two rewards in animal cognition studies.Made available in DSpace on 2014-08-26T16:32:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Casey_american_0008N_10616display.pdf: 308064 bytes, checksum: 5f2958bd6be3f390f66f03e400f5d4d7 (MD5