Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lab #2 - 2014 - Operant Conditioning Sniffy The Rat
Lab #2 - 2014 - Operant Conditioning Sniffy The Rat
water magazine/hopper
The
cumulative
record (CR)
will show you
how Sniffy’s These dotted lines show you 5-
training is minute increments
progressing
The ticks on the cumulative record show when Sniffy bar-presses. The line also moves
up when he presses the bar, allowing you to track training progress. Sniffy may bar
press a few. My Sniffy bar-pressed twice during the 10 min observation time.
Magazine Training
• Using the spacebar or your mouse, drop a pellet from the
hopper
• When Sniffy approaches and eats it, give him another pellet
• Consider Sniffy magazine-trained when he approaches the
hopper as soon as you drop a pellet (10-15 reinforcements)
• You can test his training by waiting until he is far away from
the hopper (nearest to you) and dropping a pellet: if he goes
to eat it, he’s magazine-trained
Training Sniffy to bar-press
• Training by successive approximation
• Reinforce behavior that is closer and closer to the desired behavior
• Reinforce: drinking, rearing on the rear wall, going near the food
hopper, passing in front of it
• Fixation
• If you reinforce one behavior too frequently (e.g. reinforcing
rearing on the rear wall too many times in a row), Sniffy will fixate
on that behavior, rather than what you are trying to shape
• Note
• I cannot stress enough how important it is to devote your FULL
attention to this part of the assignment.
• Training Sniffy to bar-press takes about 30 to 45 mins if you pay
attention and reinforce him appropriately. It can take several hours
if you aren’t giving it your full attention.
Bar-pressing cont.
• Slowly wean reinforcement down to only when he is rearing near the
bar, or in front of the magazine
• Sniffy will start to bar-press by himself more and more frequently stop
reinforcing him manually and let him continue to bar press until the CR
resets two times. Time him to make sure he’s bar-pressing at a frequency of
4-5 presses per minute. If he is, your training was successful!
23
Time out
Note on Cumulative Records
• You will print a copy of CRF, extinction, and spontaneous recovery
cumulative records to turn in with your report
• Label the printout (in pen):
• When was acquisition complete?
• When was extinction instituted?
• When was extinction complete?
• When was spontaneous recovery instituted?
• When was extinction complete the second time?
• Print and make notes as you go through the steps, not after you’re
finished everything – it might be hard to remember later.
• Check the manual for more info on what you’ll need to print as you move
through the steps, and what you’ll need to label on the printout for each
training schedule
26
PRF Training
• I’ll show you how to do the one PRF training schedule
• Fixed Ratio (FR) 20
• Teach Sniffy to bar-press 20 times for a food pellet
• The procedure to carry out this training schedule applies to all
the others
• First, open your original CRF Sniffy
• We can’t start out with FR20, we have to start out with a lower
ratio
• Remember how fast extinction occurred? If we start out at FR20,
or FR15, or FR10, it’s likely that he won’t learn the new schedule
Use for interval schedules
Use for fixed schedules