{"id":590,"date":"2011-11-02T07:42:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-01T21:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=590"},"modified":"2021-08-02T14:43:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T04:13:06","slug":"mcgreevy-on-operant-conditioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/mcgreevy-on-operant-conditioning\/","title":{"rendered":"McGreevy on Operant Conditioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please note: This article assumes some prior knowledge of operant or instrumental conditioning, as it mostly focuses on McGreevy\u2019s 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<\/a> from Crystal at Reactive Champion blog.\u00a0 If you already have some idea of operant conditioning, come on in.\u00a0 This may be confusing, but we can only hope it may add to your understanding.<\/em><\/p>\n

Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is when the animal\u2019s voluntary response is instrumental (i.e. important) in establishing the consequence (i.e. reinforcement or punishment).\u00a0 (By voluntary, we mean responses that the animal has control over.\u00a0 Involuntary would be things like salivating or growing hair.)<\/p>\n

McGreevy used the diagram below to consider operant conditioning.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here, the \u2018x\u2019 marks the spot of neutral stimuli that does not modify behaviours.\u00a0 That is, a neutral experience.\u00a0 From here, stimuli can either be reinforcing and increase the probability of behaviours, or they can be punishing, and decrease the animal\u2019s responses in question.\u00a0 The purple arrows indicate negative punishment (-P) and negative reinforcement (-R).\u00a0 Negative punishments use the removal of attractive stimuli to make a response less probable.\u00a0 Negative reinforcements uses the removal of adverse stimuli to make a response more probable.<\/p>\n

Where a response becomes less likely, negative or positive punishment was used.
\nWhen a response becomes more likely, negative or positive rewards were used.<\/p>\n

The merit or success of a reward or punishment is measured by degree to which it makes the behaviour more likely in the future. If an animal changes their behaviour, then we know that something aversive or attractive has occurred.\u00a0 However, animals can habituate to adverse stimuli (for example, horses can develop a \u2018hard mouth\u2019).\u00a0 These quadrants are often not occurring individually, but in unison.<\/p>\n

McGreevy finds working within the positive reinforcement spectrum most appealing, as it is hard to make mistakes.<\/p>\n

McGreevy said that when a behaviour has ceased to occur, the animal has been punished for exhibiting the behaviour \u2013 but not necessarily by positive punishment.\u00a0 (However, I would say that animals may also cease to exhibit behaviours because there are rewards in engaging in different behaviours that are greater than the rewards offered in the existing behaviour.\u00a0 For example, a dog may cease to bark at the postman when he learns that the postman\u2019s bike is actually a cue that a biscuit will be served up inside.)<\/em><\/p>\n

McGreevy presented a diagram to the seminar.\u00a0 I tried to recreate it for you, but alas, I failed.\u00a0 Basically, it shows that a goose and a person.\u00a0 The person has food.\u00a0 The goose has to balance its desire to seek food against its desire to avoid people.\u00a0 Where the goose ends up standing is the \u2018neutral zone\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is a puzzle box\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McGreevy introduced the concept of calling the whole world a “puzzle box” for the dog. \u00a0That is, the world has many opportunities for rewards and punishment, and a number of levers (i.e. behaviours in different contexts) that need to be pushed to obtain those rewards and punishments.\u00a0 Owners have the role of getting dogs excited about finding (or being shown) levers in life, and showing them the consequences that result.<\/p>\n

This is just some of the many insights McGreevy provided into training. More to come!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further reading:\u00a0The #@*$ing Four Quadrants with Dr Ian Dunbar<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A summary Paul McGreevy’s thoughts on operant conditioning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[242,12,11,241,232,240,219,246,243,247,244,245,123,220],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-behaviour","tag-diagram","tag-dog","tag-dogs","tag-instrumental-conditioning","tag-mcgreevy","tag-operant-conditioning","tag-paul-mcgreevy","tag-punish","tag-punishments","tag-reinforce","tag-reinforcers","tag-reward","tag-rewards","tag-seminar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4894,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/4894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}