Factors Mediating Food and Liquid Intake in Chickens

THREE causal factors can be applied to an interdisciplinary approach to the determination of food preferences (Scott, 1948; Woods 1949a, b): (1) Physiologists, biochemists and nutritionists tend to emphasize the effect of organic need on food choice, directing their experimental work to the search for mechanisms which direct food-getting behavior in order to maintain a steady state with regard to any necessary food component (Richter, 1947; Lepkovsky, 1948; Hollander, 1955). (2) In some cases it appears that food preferences are completely independent of organic need, specific foods being chosen because they “taste good.” This type of food preference might interest the nutritionist only to the extent that it may interfere with proper nutrition, or that it may be used to induce animals to consume certain nutritious foods by improving their “palatability” (Young, 1948). (3) The third approach, primarily of interest to the psychologist, attempts to explain those cases attributable to …