Quitting rules in hybrid foraging search: From early childhood to early adulthood

Abstract

In hybrid foraging, observers search for multiple instances of multiple target types. Children regularly perform such tasks (e.g., collecting LEGO pieces or looking for different teammates within a game). Quitting rules (When do you leave the search?) are important in foraging (e.g., I found enough LEGOs or teammates). However, the development of quitting behavior has not yet been experimentally studied, and it could give us significant information about executive function development. We tested 279 observers (4–25 years old) using classic feature and conjunction foraging. The results show that while children’s performance improved with age, all groups made similar "quitting" decisions roughly following optimal choices as defined by Charnov’s Marginal Value Theorem (MVT), with the youngest 4–5 years old children quitting slightly earlier. It seems that mature quitting rules in search operate relatively early in development, suggesting that those rules are quite basic aspects of the human cognition