Shaping Shirley- Day 1

Goal:
To begin to shape (reinforcement of successive approximations of a desired behavior) Shirley to press the bar in the cage down in order to receive a reward from the magazine.

Procedure:
Carolyn and I began shaping Shirley the same day that we were magazine training her. Because Shirley caught on to magazine training so quickly there were a few minutes left in the session for Dr. Trench to help us begin to shape as well. Shaping began about half way through the training session (between 2:40 p.m. and 2:45 p.m.) and lasted until the end of the session at 2:51 p.m. Carolyn was still in charge of the hand switch and reinforcements. Carolyn started to reward Shirley every time she got near the bar, then every time she turned left from the magazine tray, and eventually every time she would come down over the bar after rearing up to check out the light.

Results:
We were not able to fully shape Shirley today due to lack of time. Every time Carolyn would press the hand switch Shirley would check for her reward but she was showing very few signs of returning to the  bar in order to receive another reward.

Discussion:
Because Shirley was not immediately returning to the bar or area near the bar after receiving her reinforcement indicated that she was not fully associating the bar with the reward. We were only able to shape Shirley for about 5 to 10 minutes which is no where near enough time to shape completely. She did press the bar on her own 21 times, but because it seemed like random pressing and we could not determine that to be due to her understanding the association we did not consider her fully shaped, but to be on the right track. She did seem to be learning easily and I think that if we would have been able to continue the session for a while longer she may have been even closer to being completely shaped.

Magazine Training Shirley

Goal:

To magazine train our rat, meaning, associating the sound of the lever and the light to a reward in the magazine tray. Shirley should check the magazine tray every time she hears the lever and sees the light flash when I press the hand switch; if she does this then she is properly trained.

Procedure:

Before we began magazine training we food deprived Shirley to approximately 80% of her original body weight. Her target weight was 208 grams and Shirley weighed in at 206.7 grams on September 17th, which was her first day of training. We deprived her of food so that she would be motivated for food rewards during training. Two days before we trained we introduced the chocolate pellets into her diet so that she would eat them from the magazine when she was rewarded. On the first day of training, Dr. Trench helped my partner (Carolyn) and I magazine train Shirley. We started the training session at 2:30 p.m. and ended after 20 minutes and 45 seconds. Carolyn was in charge of the hand switch today and delivered the sugar pellets to Shirley. When Shirley was first placed in the box Carolyn delivered a sugar pellet and waited for her to go to the magazine tray and eat it. Eventually Shirley walked over to the tray and ate the food, as soon as she left Carolyn delivered another pellet. This continued for a few minutes but Shirley picked up on the association very quickly. It only took between 10-15 minutes for Shirley to associate the sound of the lever and the light to the reward. After this we began shaping her to press the bar. Shirley began to press the bar during magazine training- she pressed the bar 21 times during the session and Carolyn pressed the hand switch 46 times during the entire session. Shirley received 67 reinforcements during the 21 minutes and 45 seconds.

Results:

At first when Carolyn would press the switch when Shirley was on the opposite corner of the cage she would not respond to the magazine noise. It did not take long, however, for Shirley to come quickly to the magazine tray after Carolyn pressed the hand switch, no matter where she was in the cage.

Discussion:

We decided that Shirley was magazine trained when she would come over to the magazine tray after Carolyn pressed the hand switch each time. Also we decided that Shirley was magazine trained when she began to press the bar on her own that day and respond to the sound and the light by checking for a reward. We also noted that Shirley was not responding to the signals of the hand switch at random, because she would check the magazine tray every time Carolyn would press the hand switch. At the very beginning of magazine training, Shirley did not check the magazine tray frequently. After she made the connection, though, her behavior changed and she would become more eager and hurry to the tray. We noticed that Shirley was a very active rat. She would rear up in the middle of the cage to check out the ceiling she would also rear up in every corner and near the light in the cage to get a sense of her surroundings. Shirley was a fast learner and was very engaged in what was happening. I believe that magazine training her was so quick because she was so active and curious about what was happening and how she got more food. After she was rewarded with several pellets she began to stick her head inside of the magazine and twist her body around to try and push herself inside to see if she could get more food. Shirley was eager to receive a chocolate pellet and was trying anything she could to make that happen. Shirley's magazine training was similar to the class discussion. We went through all of the steps of conditioning her to associate the sound and light (stimuli/ secondary reinforcer) to the chocolate pellet (primary reinforcer).

 

The chocolate pellets Shirley received after she learned to associate the sound of the lever and the light to the food. 

The food hopper pictured above is where the chocolate pellets were released to. 

Sniffy the Virtual Rat

Sniffy is a virtual rat that we are supposed to magazine train and shape to bar press before we start training our live rat, Shirley. Magazine training Sniffy did not take as long as I thought it would and made things a lot clearer in my mind about what magazine training our live rat would actually look like.  Magazine training sniffy was very easy and took only about fifteen or twenty minutes to get him to associate the sound of the bar with receiving the pellets. Shaping Sniffy to press the bar was more difficult and took longer than it did to magazine train him. Sniffy progressed fairly quickly at first during shaping. He learned to rear and repeated that action many times and seemed to pick up the fact that he needed to press the lever to receive food fairly easily. It was not until the action bar on the graph and the sound association bar reached over a quarter of the way that it became frustrating. Sniffy seemed to have bar pressing understood (pushing the bar in rapid succession 8- 10 times) according to the book. However, it took him a while to actually push past the last step and reach the max. Every time Sniffy would rear back and not press the bar his bars on the graph would decrease slightly. However, his rearing back occasionally did not seem unnatural or due to the fact that he was not trained fully like the program was telling me. It took a good amount of time (probably closer to 45 minutes or and hour) to actually get Sniffy to the maximum potential on the bar graph so that the program determined him fully trained.

After training Sniffy, I do feel more prepared now to train Shirley. I think that training Sniffy virtually gave me a more concrete understanding of what was actually going to be happening in the box. When just discussing the process in class it I had an unclear picture and imagined it being much more complicated than it actually is. I found the Sniffy very helpful for me considering I am a visual learner and having examples I can see and practice with help me understand better and achieve my goals better as well.

I put Sniffy on a Fixed interval schedule (FI-10) after shaping him. Sniffy seemed to get somewhat frustrated at first when the pellet would not be given to him when he pressed the bar. When he did not get a pellet but wanted one he would press the bar rapidly and ferociously a few times before giving up.  Before, during shaping, Sniffy would press the bar in succession but not with so much aggression towards the lever. After a few minutes he figured out that if he waited long enough he would eventually receive a pellet.

Sniffy On FI-10

Bar Press Graph

First Meeting the Rats

At first before meeting the rats in lab, I have to admit that I was a bit nervous. I have always thought that their faces were cute, but their tails really bothered me. I was also under the impression that the rats were much larger than they really are. All I could think was that this was going to look like a street rat and I wouldn't be able to get used to it.  When the two rats were first brought in I was still a bit nervous when I first saw them for the first time, but after a while my nerves calmed down. It really helped that they weren't as big as I was expecting them to be. When I met my rat all my nerves were completely gone. Her face was so much cuter than I thought it would be and she was even smaller than the rats that Dr. Trench brought in. Even though she and I were both nervous and she was trying not to let me pick her up I finally got her, and it wasn't as hard as I imagined it would be. After I picked her up and held her for a few minutes I thought "okay this is going to be fun after all!" My lab partner, Carolyn, and I talked about what we were going to name her and after meeting her and seeing how cute she was we decided that Shirley was the perfect name. Today I went in and held Shirley again to get better at picking her up and putting her in her cage. It was much easier this time to get her out and both of us seemed much more relaxed than the first time we met!

Shirley peeking to see what was happening

Me holding Shirley the second time.