Tag Archives: operant conditioning

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 →

05/7/12

Dunbar on Classical Conditioning

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

Dunbar believes Classical Conditioning is a big deal in dog training.  He doesn’t believe in separating Operant Conditioning from Classical Conditioning. To Dunbar, the dog learns the same thing: In case of x, good things happen, and in case of y, bad things happen.

White poodle.

For a basic overview of classical conditioning:  Classical conditioning was named by Pavlov, who learnt that if he rung a bell before feeding dogs, overtime, the dogs would start to saliva

te at the sound of the bell alone.  Basically, classical conditioning is associative learning.  Dogs will associate things with certain stimuli.  In Dunbar’s view, however, he thinks that the brilliance of classical conditioning has been lost over time.  In his opinion, just because Pavlov worked with a reflex (i.e. the dog couldn’t choose to salivate, it happened itself), doesn’t mean that classical conditioning is only used for reflexes.  (This is normally the distinctive difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning, but Dunbar ignores it and finds it irrelevant. Confusing!)

 

Classical conditioning should happen all through a dog’s life.  Treats should never be phased out for classical conditioning.  Dunbar said, “Don’t take you dog’s temperament for granted” and “If your dog is friendly, it can be friendlier”.

Dunbar particularly advocated Classical Conditioning for improving handling of dogs.  Particularly, classically conditioning collar grabs and other contact the dog may find unpleasant.

He talked about dog trainer Bill Campbell’s ‘jolly routine’, which is an over-the-top play response an owner ‘performs’ when a stimulus is seen.  The idea is the dog things, “Whenever my owner sees x, they get so happy!” – which in terms classically conditions the dog to like x.

While he believes there is better ways of getting rid of problem behaviour, he did talk about using ‘lightning strike’ verbal feedback for poor behaviour.  He described this as punishment in a praise sandwich.  For example, the dialogue would go: “good dog, very well done, lovely dog, excellent, good, good, yes, ASSHOIFJIDSHKLJ!!!, yes, good dog, good, very good”.

He also liked the use of classical conditioning in shelters, particularly in the Open Paw program, where dogs are rewarded for just being in the shelter and seeing people.

Dunbar describes classical conditioning as a ‘winning strategy’.

Further reading: my lecture notes from Paul McGreevy on Classical Conditioning.

External link:  Roger Abrantes’ post on “Unveiling the myth of reinforcers and punishers” 

Updated with additional notes 13/10/12.

11/27/11

McGreevy on ‘The Keys’ to Dog Training

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.

 

Paul McGreevy wrote a book, Carrots and Sticks (2nd edition to be released soon), where he interviewed a number of animal trainers internationally.  Consequently, he identified two key components to animal training: Timing and consistency.

Photos © Ruthless Photos

Good timing is imperative to effective training.  This means appropriately rewarding and punishing animals, at the right moment. (Or using a marker to do so.)

Consistency was also important to animal training.  He argued that inconsistency impedes training and learning, and increases confusion for the animal.  McGreevy explained that, if different people were training an animal, then the animal would have to generalise the training methods and so confusion could occur.  He also explained the value in isolation, in order to teach the animal to value human attention, and allow the trainer to be entirely consistent when they do interact with the animal.

Timing and consistency are considered important across all species.

Though it was only mentioned in passing, I think both timing and consistency as a whole could be described by schedules of reinforcement.  Schedules of reinforcement are almost ‘rules’ that explain how varying delivery of reinforcement can product different results in the animal’s response.  Reinforcement can be based either on ‘all or nothing’ (continuous reinforcement, or no reinforcement seeking extinction), or after a fixed or variable amount of time, or after a fixed or variable amount of responses/behaviours.

More McGreevy seminar based posts to come!

 

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.

11/2/11

McGreevy on Operant Conditioning

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index.

 

Please note: This article assumes some prior knowledge of operant or instrumental conditioning, as it mostly focuses on McGreevy’s comments on operant and instrumental conditioning, rather than on explaining these terms itself. If you are lacking a comprehensive understanding of Operant Conditioning, then I suggest this page from Crystal at Reactive Champion blog.  If you already have some idea of operant conditioning, come on in.  This may be confusing, but we can only hope it may add to your understanding.

Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is when the animal’s voluntary response is instrumental (i.e. important) in establishing the consequence (i.e. reinforcement or punishment).  (By voluntary, we mean responses that the animal has control over.  Involuntary would be things like salivating or growing hair.)

McGreevy used the diagram below to consider operant conditioning.

Here, the ‘x’ marks the spot of neutral stimuli that does not modify behaviours.  That is, a neutral experience.  From here, stimuli can either be reinforcing and increase the probability of behaviours, or they can be punishing, and decrease the animal’s responses in question.  The purple arrows indicate negative punishment (-P) and negative reinforcement (-R).  Negative punishments use the removal of attractive stimuli to make a response less probable.  Negative reinforcements uses the removal of adverse stimuli to make a response more probable. Continue reading →