A Problem and a Solution

-
In my experiment in the beginning of the term where I trained Lil Thing to odor detect different smells and bring them to me in a specific order, I noticed her problem with getting satiated. She had a hard time training for a full thirty minutes. So in attempt to solve this problem in this experiment I dropped Lil Thing's food deprivation percentage to 85% of her total body weight at the beginning of the experiment. I found that this did indeed help with the issue of endurance during training sessions. In the operant box Lil Thing had a longer attention span and worked longer while she was in the box.

This difference in weight can be seen in my weight chart post.
https://learninglabp2murrayg.blogspot.com/2019/05/weight-chart.html 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1st Post! General Introductions

-
Image
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...
Read more

Lil Thing Magazine Training

-
Image
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...
Read more

Weight Chart

-
Subject: Lil Thing Target Weight: 215g Date Weight Food 4/3/19 253 3.1 4/4 242.8 3.5 4/5 234.9 4.2 4/6 228.9 3.5 4/7 225.7 4.0 4/8 224.0 4.3 4/9 220 3.3 4/10 217 3.8 4/11 213.4 6.2 4/12 210.6 9.0 4/13 214.2 9.4 4/14 208.4 10.4 4/15 215.9 10.3 4/16 211.1 11.2 4/17 220.9 10.4 4/18 215.7 10.8 4/19 217.2 11.4 4/20 213.4 10.3 4/21 211.8 12.5 4/22 219.3 12.2 4/23 217.7 12.7 4/24 232.4 8.5 4/25 219.9 9.0 4/26 217.7 8.2 4/27 216.8 8.3 4/28 215.1 10.1 4/29 213.9 10.8 ...
Read more