An agent simulation study of a unified mechanism on individual foraging behaviour with individual scalar expectancies

In this study, we present a selective overview of group and individual foraging behaviour and propose an agent-based model to unify these methodologies, enabling the exploration of plausible causal mechanisms and novel hypothesis generation. Despite its popular place in behavioural science, little work has been done with the generalized matching equation as it pertains to simulation work. Our model uses psychologically justifiable and theoretically grounded models of memory for time and decision rules. The results of preliminary simulation experiments suggest that the model is sensitive to changes in pay-off density and correctly replicates Ideal Free Distributions. Journal of Simulation (2012) 6, 33-42. doi:10.1057/jos.2011.10; published online 17 June 2011