Final Flashcards
You are more likely to make progress if
you make your approximations very small
If you think that physically manipulating the animal using a leash or creance is something to avoid or reduce, you are more likely to
focus on shaping the behavior you want
Trainer’s goal
make the animal want to do the behavior
letting inner primate take over
thinking the animal is always testing your behavior
According to the Balance Model
the desirable stimuli offered by the trainer may not outweigh the aversive stimuli present.
Training a shy animal to come to you would be an example of modifying the
responsiveness of the animal
What is the difference between theory and application
Theory refers to operant principles
Application refers to techniques
What characteristics of dolphins led to innovative training techniques
Because dolphins cannot be forced to perform
animals with the longest history of training in zoos
elephants
marine mammal trainers were the first to put the techniques of operant conditioning to widespread use in
the zoological community
Ken Ramirez defines training as teaching because
the trainer teaches the animal how to live in its new environment
According to Ken Ramirez, the real goal of animal training is
animal care
Important questions to ask about each animal under your care when starting a training program
Where does it normally live? What is its social structure like? What does it eat? What animals does it encounter in the wild and how do they interact? What other factors are important to its life?
According to Ramirez, besides behavioral theory, a good trainer must know
the natural history and biology of animals. about veterinary care. nutritional and dietary needs water quality all aspects of animal care
Ken Ramirez says trust is developed between the animal and the trainer through
Feeding animal
Caring for animal
Playing w/ animal
Scanning for behavior
capturing behavior
Bringing the behavior under stimulus control
establishing a cue for the behavior
targeting
teaching animal to touch some part of body to an object.
Training can be kept fun for the animal by
never allowing a training session to go on too long.
When Ted Turner talks about letting go of our humanism, he means trainers should
let go of the human tendency to punish incorrect behavior and focus on on positively reinforcing correct behavior
Before training an animal, you should learn about that species’
- Natural history
- Anatomy and physiology
- social structure
- feeding habits
In captivity, an animal’s diet includes
everything you feed the animal
An animal’s diet should include a variety of items because
- provides a more balanced diet
- at times you may not be able to get certain foods
base diet
what the animal gets regardless of its performance. can be added to if the animal performs well
Important measurements of the animal’s motivation include
- body weight
- behavioral rating
Different species will vary in their needs for
- climbing structures
- supplemental heat
- places in which to hide
Good record keeping allows you to
- identify trends
- track progress
- communicate w/ co-trainers
non-training records
records of medical problems
environmental
observation
pre-training plan
describes steps that will be taken in training a behavior
training record
- documents actual steps taken in training a behavior
- includes adjustments to plan
The trainer will have more info for solving problems and making sound decisions by
learning about the non-training aspects of their animals’ lives.
Information which should be included in training records include
- behavioral rating
- weather conditions
- time of training session
- people involved in session
Monthly diet summaries can provide
information about trends in the animal’s general
state.
indication of health problems
Things which can be determined by observation
- frightening stimuli
- dominance relationships
- activity patterns
- favorite resting place
a complicated record keeping system
may be too difficult to use
free contact
animal and trainer have equal access to work area
semi-protected contact
some restraint protects trainer from animal
protected contact
barrier separates trainer and animal
confined contact
animal is restrained
remote training
no contact of any kind between animal and trainer
A trainer’s biases and attitudes can affect
How he approaches training, how he solves problems
The limitations an animal may have as the result of its perceptual systems may be seen as
a lack of learning ability
In the final analysis, the intelligence of the animal is
irrelevant b/c any animal will respond to operant conditioning
If a trainer is emotionally upset about something in their personal life, in regards to training, they should
- let someone else make the decisions
- postpone the training session
Training is successful because
the trainer reinforces good behavior, not good thoughts or intentions
If the trainer makes excuses for the animal then later
requires better behavior, the animal
may become confused or frustrated
Evidence that trainers should not try to understand the thoughts of their animals includes:
people misinterpret other people’s exressions
Trainers, being compassionate people, can become too emotional and
make bad training decisions
A less-educated or self-taught animal trainer may
- have many superstitious behaviors
- be unable to say how he is cueing the animal
Every interaction a trainer has with his animals has some kind of reinforcing value because
training is happening all the time
Non-formal interactions help a trainer develop
- better understanding of each individual animal
- good animal sense
According to Ramirez, play sessions can help a trainer
- shape interactive behavior.
- determine preferences (favorite toys, games, tactile spots)
- build a relationship with the animal.
Play sessions with carnivores
may result in trainer having to discipline the animal
In general, before touching an animal, you should
let it know you are going to touch it
Gail Laule’s window of opportunity idea
you can compare each species in terms of accessibility to learning vs. amount of instinctive behavior.
Devoting training time to desensitization
helps you anticipate problems and avoid disaster
A negative reinforcer is reinforcing
when it is taken away
A major limitation of training with reinforcement is that
you can’t reinforce behavior that is not occurring
In general, if an animal is frightened, it will
be unable to learn
Techniques used to get a subject to start doing a behavior include
- shaping
- targeting
- baiting
Whether something is reinforcing depends on the
- subject’s state
- animal’s natural history
It is useful to have a variety of reinforcers available because
the animals find variety interesting
With negative reinforcement, a change in behavior makes the
aversive stimulus go away
True or false, training can be done almost entirely with negative reinforcers.
True
In the example of training a skittish llama to allow a person to get close enough to touch it, the negative reinforcer was
the proximity of the trainer
Each instance of negative reinforcement
also contains a punisher
The informational content of the reinforcer is more important than the reinforcer itself because it
tells the subject exactly what you want
When you are having difficulties in a training situation, what is the first question you should ask yourself?
Am I reinforcing too late?
Baiting can reinforce non-response because
presentation of the food is a conditioned reinforcer
If the negative reinforcer doesn’t cease the instant the desired result is achieved,
the negative reinforcer doesn’t provide any information and is not reinforcing
Advantages of using the smallest food reinforcement possible include:
It allows more reinforcers per session before the
animal becomes satiated.
In order to use small reinforcements, the animal
may need to be trained to accept them
According to Pryor, the animal’s diet can be divided into 80 reinforcers and the trainer should use
- one-quarter of the diet if doing only one session a day.
- use 20-30 reinforcers each session if doing 3-4 sessions.
According to Pryor, a jackpot
- may be 10x bigger than a normal reinforcer.
- can be used to mark a sudden breakthrough
- comes as a surprise to the animal.
According to Pryor, the problem of reinforcing the subject at the precise moment it is doing the correct behavior is solved by using a
conditioned reinforcer
A conditioned reinforcer can be made more powerful by
Pairing it with several primary reinforcers
If the bridge is a termination signal, when should you bridge when you are training an animal to hold an object?
When the animal has held the object the target amount of time
Besides being a conditioned reinforcer, the clicker also can function
to communicate specific info
keep going signal
tells the subject it is doing the right thing
Using the bridge as a keep going signal can weaken it by
extinguishing the conditioning associated with it.
A conditioned aversive signal communicates to the animal that
what it is doing now is not good and something bad will happen unless it stops
According to Pryor, mistakes often made by a trainer who uses lots of corrections include:
- viewing correction as equivalent to positive w/o taking into account other effects it has on learner
- using reprimands and punishers w/o establishing a warning signal.
Unlike a no-reward marker, a stop signal
may lead to reinforcement
the redirection signal
tells the animal to try something else
LRS is most like
the stop signal
To reliably maintain an already-learned behavior it is necessary to
reinforce it only occasionally and on a random, unpredictable basis
A trainer would not use a variable schedule when the behavior involves
solving some kind of puzzle or discrimination
Differential reinforcement of stronger behavior is facilitated by using
variable reinforcement
The problems with fixed schedules include
Early responses in a series become weaker
When training the animal on a long-duration behavior,
- the animal may show a low rate of responding at the beginning of the interval.
- you need to train for attitude
When the Navy trained their belugas for hearing tests in deep water, they
gradually increased the time the animals had to stay at the station.
In order to avoid superstitious behavior, you should
introduce variations in all the circumstances that do not matter to you.
Shaping is possible because
behavior is possible
According to Pryor, how fast you can raise the criteria is a function of
how well you communicate what your rules for gaining reinforcement are
Since one reinforcement can convey only one piece of info at a time, you should
train only one aspect of any particular behavior at a time
To effectively shape a behavior, the trainer needs to identify all
the criteria involved
You should put the current level of response on a variable schedule before raising the criteria so
- you can differentially reinforce stronger or better responses.
- the subject will tolerate occasionally not getting reinforced
- the behavior will be more resistant to extinction.
According to Pryor, an extinction burst
the result of non-reinforcement
When you start working on a different part of the behavior, already-learned behavior
may get sloppy
You should have all your shaping steps planned out before training
b/c you can’t predict where breakthroughs will occur
When an animal makes a breakthrough, the trainer
- can jackpot the animal
- may firmly establish what was learned by continuing the training
Only one trainer should shape a new behavior because
better consistency is achieved
If the shaping procedure you are using is not working, you should
- examine your assumptions about what is reinforcing.
- consider trying different approximations.
Ending a session on a high note means
- leaving the animal with a positive impression.
- quitting before the animal’s attention runs out.
A useful tool for shaping behaviors that involve movement of the animal is
target training
mimicry
learning by observation
To make modeling work, you should
fade out your physical assistance, reinforce small efforts made by animal
the effects of shaping include
increasing the animal’s attention span
When there is nothing an animal can do to avoid an aversive stimulus and no escape is possible, the animal is likely to show
learned helplessness
According to Pryor, cues are learned when
the behavior associated with the cue has a history of being reinforced.
According to Pryor, reasons an animal might respond slowly to a cue include:
the animal was not taught to respond quickly
In conventional training, a cue is a conditioned negative reinforcer because the animal
learns to do the behavior to avoid being pushed into position.
With operant conditioning, because the cue is associated with the behavior that leads to reinforcement, the cue is a
conditioned positive reinforcer
shaping the response to the cue
- reinforcing small starts of the behavior after the cue is given.
- gradually requiring the entire behavior.
Clever Hans phenomenon
apparently amazing behavior unconsciously cued by the experimenter.
According to Pryor, a signal is faded by reducing
the magnitude of the signal
According to Pryor, a signal is faded to its limit when the
the animal can just perceive it
fading the cue
increase the animal’s attentiveness
A cue can be a shortened version of
the motion the target followed during the shaping of the behavior.
limited hold
- used to shape prompt response to a discriminative stimulus.
- gradually decreasing the time in which the subject
has to respond before removing opportunity for reinforcement
ways to eliminate anticipation
giving the animal a time-out when it offers the behavior before it is given the cue
teaching a behavioral chain backwards
facilitates the SD for a behavior serving as a conditioned reinforcer for a previous behavior.
If an animal incorrectly does one of the behaviors in a chain, the trainer should
retrain the behavior which was done incorrectly
According to Pryor, when an animal knows lots of cues, it will
learn new cues more easily
According to Pryor, a prelearning dip occurs because the animal
is focusing on the cue instead of the behavior
A tiger in the old compound at the college was not trained during the summer then a student started training the cat for training class in the fall. During the first training session, the tiger did all five of the behaviors it had been taught previously. In subsequent training sessions, the tiger did fewer and fewer of these behaviors until the cat was not responding at all to the student. The student thought the tiger was testing her but Gary disagreed. Briefly describe what was done to get the animal responding again and what this says about reinforcers.
To get the animal responding again the trainer would walk away (time out) if the animal failed to do the behavior she asked and would reinforce the animal w/ both food an lots of attention when the animal did the correct behavior. This tells us that the animal was really craving attention (over food) - something it had been somewhat deprived of all summer. Moral: don’t get caught up in only using one type of reinforcement - be sensitive to the animal’s signals and adapt what type of reinforcement you use.
List the steps, in the correct order, involved in teaching a dolphin to target
- touch your hand to dolphin’s rostrum, bridge, and reinforce. do this a number of times
- move hand a couple of inches away from dolphin’s rostrum
- bridge and reinforce any movement towards hand
- once dolphin is reliably moving forward and touching hand keep increasing distance it has to travel to touch it so it will eventually be able to target from any distance
Describe how intermittent reinforcement can be used to increase the duration of a behavior such as an extended target or stay.
Start w/ behavior that is on continuous reinforcement schedule, then start reinforcing for performing that behavior for slightly longer period, say 2 seconds. Increase time slowly until you at 5 seconds. From there, move to variable interval schedule w/ average of 5 seconds. By increasing the average, you can increase duration of behavior significantly.
What four conditions define perfect stimulus control?
- behavior is performed when cue us present-always
- behavior is not performed when cue is absent
- no other behavior occurs when cue is present
- behavior is not performed in presence of different cue
