An Agent-Based Approach to Study the Producer-Scrounger Game in Humans

In social foraging situations, group members choose between two strategies: (a) actively engage in searching for resource sources (Producing); or (b) join a resource source previously discovered by another group member (Scrounging). Two predictions of the Rate-Maximization Model are: (a) the proportion of producers will be lower in conditions where the group size is larger; and (b) the proportion of producers will be lower in conditions where the number of resources is higher. While these predictions have been tested across various species, the number of studies involving human participants remains relatively low. Using an agent-based model approach, we propose a Direct Interaction Task to study the producer-scrounger game in human participants. In this online behavioral task, a single participant moves freely within the habitat and competes for resources against agents. The study involved 80 university students assigned to one of four conditions that varied by group size (G4, G8) and the number of prey (F5, F15). The results show a decrease in the producer index when the group size was larger; however, no effect was observed for the number of prey. This study highlights the potential for investigating social foraging in controlled environments without extensive physical space.