Tag Archives: learning theory

03/26/13

Classical Conditioning in Dogs

‘Classical conditioning’ is a term originally coined by Ivan Pavlov.  This type of conditioning is highly relevant to dog training.

While using dogs to experiment on digestion, Pavlov noticed dogs had what he called “psychic secretion” of saliva, where the dogs seem to know when they were going to be fed and began to salivate.  On further investigation, he found that whenever his lab assistant entered the room, the dogs began to salivate.  Salivation is a reflex, that is, a behaviour outside of the dog’s control, but the dog learnt to exhibit this reflex when associated with an incoming lab assistant.  Pavlov modified his experiment to further examine this phenomena.

Poodle type dog jumping over an agility course jump.

From here, the specifics of classical conditioning (sometimes also called Pavlovian conditioning) became published and well known. Basically, classical conditioning is where a previously neutral thing becomes paired with the reflexes associated with something else.   Continue reading →

10/23/12

Dog training doesn’t happen in a laboratory!

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Along with Dunbar’s criticisms of the four quadrants of operant conditioning, he also criticised learning theory for being “mostly irrelevant” to pet dog training.  ‘These days’, learning theory is common knowledge for most dog trainers, but Dunbar considers it to be mostly irrelevant in the ‘real world’ of dog training.

 

Outside of the laboratory is a whole wide world of training environments and possible rewards. So why are we so caught up on learning theory?

Much of learning theory has been established by computer-use of reinforcements and punishments.  To Dunbar, this means the findings of learning theory, as delivered a lab, is only relevant to lab settings.  In a laboratory, the subjects are normally rats or pigeons, computers control the training, and the animals are contained.  In the real world of dog training, humans are not computers (they are inconsistent), dogs are more complex than rats and pigeons, dogs escape from people (aren’t contained), and dogs bite!

But humans have an advantage: Humans have voice and can moderate their tone to reward and punish.  Computers cannot use verbal rewards or punishments, and so research on verbal feedback is almost entirely neglected.  Dunbar encourages verbal feedback to train recalls, and claims it is easy to do.  He believes that verbals are more expressive than clicks, jerks and shocks.  Verbals can describe how desirable behaviour was and also an appropriate alternative behaviour.

Punishment may be effective in a laboratory, but (to quote his handout) “people are inconsistent and so the dog quickly learns those times when he will not be punished, i.e., when the owner is physically-absent (dog at home alone), physically-present but functionally absent (dog off leash), or physically-present but mentally absent (owner day-dreaming or making a phone call).”  On top of this, owners normally have bad timing, and dogs learn to be separated from their owners to avoid punishments.  (See also: Dunbar’s thoughts on punishment.)  Dunbar described people as “screwed before we start” if we seek to replicate laboratory settings in real-world dog training. Continue reading →

10/13/12

The #@*$ing Four Quadrants (Dunbar)

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

 

Dunbar has a clear opinion on the four quadrants of operant conditioning: Ditch them!  Dunbar feels we have entered into a time of ‘quadrant worship’ when, in reality, the quadrant was only ever designed to be a memory aid. The quadrants have also led to a division in the dog community, with half the people worshipping positive rewards and negative punishment (i.e. “positive trainers”), and the other half worshipping negative rewards and positive punishment.

 

Here’s a little theory:  In the quadrants, positive means “you give” and negative means “negate” or take away.

Dunbar used this table to illustrate the quadrants:

Start Stop
Reward Positive Reinforcement Negative Punishment
Punish Positive Punishment Negative Reinforcement

 

Dunbar thinks this is a complicated way of viewing things.  He says that the dog doesn’t assess anything other than “did the environment get better or worse?”  He believes dogs have a binary outlook to life.  They see things as good or bad. Continue reading →