Sniffy Magazine Training
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 minutes from start of shaping to the end of extinction. Magazine training took 30 of those minutes.
In preparation for the operant boxes I think that Sniffy does an excellent job in illustrating how training is going to go. However, we did our Sniffy training before our free train project so I feel as though it did not relate as much to that project as it does the operant box. The same rules apply for shaping but things are much more cut and dry in the operant box where as someone who is training a rat to play basketball there may be some bigger challenges.
My Sniffy was put on an FR 10 schedule and she did get this schedule down pat. When the ratio begins to stretch and the rat must exert more energy to get the reward. I noticed that it may step away more often from the lever, whereas during the FR 1 schedule it had many repetitions and was able to stay focused longer. I believe this is from the instant reward.
Overall, Sniffy is a very beneficial program and prepared me to train my real rat.
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 minutes from start of shaping to the end of extinction. Magazine training took 30 of those minutes.
In preparation for the operant boxes I think that Sniffy does an excellent job in illustrating how training is going to go. However, we did our Sniffy training before our free train project so I feel as though it did not relate as much to that project as it does the operant box. The same rules apply for shaping but things are much more cut and dry in the operant box where as someone who is training a rat to play basketball there may be some bigger challenges.
My Sniffy was put on an FR 10 schedule and she did get this schedule down pat. When the ratio begins to stretch and the rat must exert more energy to get the reward. I noticed that it may step away more often from the lever, whereas during the FR 1 schedule it had many repetitions and was able to stay focused longer. I believe this is from the instant reward.
Overall, Sniffy is a very beneficial program and prepared me to train my real rat.
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