I have just finished adding one new HUGE feature and one new possible way in which parents are effected by chick behavior to the model.
Test cases are a way for me to start the simulation running and let it run longer without interaction. There were already discrete runs of the simulation, of which there are many in a given test so that I can be fairly certain that the data collected from the model is accurate. Now there is another unit of simulation run that I am calling a test case. Each test case can have different initial values, whereas each run within a test case does not. This means that I can, for example, run a given test across all possible lateralizations and determine which amount of lateralization is optimal without having to manually start the simulation for each different value of lateralization.
Parent memory is just a second way to think about parent reaction to chick lateralization. So far, I have seen that an adult tern that picks fish up one way or the other based on how many times the chick has dropped the fish in a given feeding attempt does not have a significant effect on the chick's success. However, if the parent remembers which orientation the fish was in on the last successful feeding and offers the fish that way to the chick on the first try, success rates go up significantly with certain high levels of lateralization.
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