Learning Lab: Lil Thing Project 2

DAY 1 The first day of shaping training lasted 30 minutes. In that 30 minutes I administered 100 pellets with the handswitch. During this process I could tell very quickly that she knew the lever had something to do with her task. I began delivering pellets when she put her head near the lever. Then her nose on the lever. Then she began biting the lever which I rewarded. She then began putting her right hand on lever and ducking her head under the lever (as seen in photo). I reinforced this action because she was making contact with the lever but then I was afraid she would think she was being rewarded for ducking her head. Then I waited for her to bring her head up to reward her. Throughout this discovery process she would get frustrated or uninterested and would take a lap or two around the operant box. By the end of the 30 minute session though Lil Thing was making good contact with the lever but was not pressing down yet. I hope that DAY 2 of shaping we will make more progre...

Lil Thing  is my real live rat that is being magazine trained. It took one day and in 18 minutes and 36 seconds Lil thing was magazine trained. I knew that she was trained because she began pressing the lever and administering her own food consistently, without me having to press the lever. During this process I noticed that the noise of the pellet hitting the tray and the light associated with the food delivery triggered a response in Lil Thing that she was doing something right. She was very curious during this time and did not seem driven to complete the task rather more curious to figure out what was wanted of her. However, when she started pressing the lever and associating all the noises with the correct behavior that result in food, she looked very driven. This did illustrate some similarities to what we learned in class about magazine training. The most important thing that I noticed was the timing of the reinforcement. When Sniffy was learning to press the lever I h...

Sniffy is an online training simulator in which researchers train the rat to be magazine trained and then operate on different schedules of reinforcement. Magazine training is the method of getting an animal familiar with the mechanism that distributes food to them. So for Sniffy, the stimulus is food and it is trained to press the lever (the desired behavior) to reward itself with the food. In my experience the Sniffy program took much longer to train than my actual rat (Lil Thing). I believe this is done intentionally to build patients in the researcher. It is also illustrating how a real rat could be difficult to train. Fortunately, in my case Lil Thing has been very easy to work with and is a fast learner. In Sniffy once the rat is pressing the lever on an FR 1 schedule consistently it is considered to be shaped. Meaning that the rat knows that if it presses the lever food will appear and the rat is not scared of the magazine noises. My Sniffy program in all took about 120 ...

Welcome to Learning Lab!  Here we will explore the scientific ways of training my rat, Lil Thing, to complete magazine training and eventually operantly condition her to press a lever! Everyone meet Lil Thing! (isn't she just the cutest!) Before taking this class, hearing the word rats usually brought about a feeling of uneasiness or discomfort. Usually, rats are associated with infestation and disease. Apparently people who think of rats to be disgusting and unpleasant have cleary never met Lil Thing or any of the wonderful rats we have in our lab. Since taking this class I have formed a bond with my rat and she has built a connection with me. She curls up in my hands every time I hold her and sometimes it's hard to put her down because she just wants to play! The very first day we met I was excited to hold her, I knew that I could not go in with any reservations because she would sense my concerns. I wanted to be excited and happy so that she would feel comfortable wit...