Animal training

Last updated
Animal trainer
Female animal trainer and leopard, c1906.jpg
Early 20th century animal trainer Dolores Vallecita with a leopard.
Occupation
NamesAnimal trainer
Occupation type
Performing arts
Activity sectors
Social science, busking, circus, show business
Description
CompetenciesManual dexterity
Education required
See professional requirements
Fields of
employment
Police, education, entertainment
Related jobs
Lion tamer; see related occupations

Animal training is the act of teaching animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli. Training may be for purposes such as companionship, detection, protection, and entertainment. The type of training an animal receives will vary depending on the training method used, and the purpose for training the animal. For example, a seeing eye dog will be trained to achieve a different goal than a wild animal in a circus.

Contents

In some countries animal trainer certification bodies exist. They do not share consistent goals or requirements; they do not prevent someone from practicing as an animal trainer nor using the title. Similarly, the United States does not require animal trainers to have any specific certification. [1] An animal trainer should consider the natural behaviors of the animal and aim to modify behaviors through a basic system of reward and punishment. [2]

Methods

The behavioral approach

Principles

During training, an animal trainer can administer one of four potential consequences for a given behavior:

Positive reinforcement
Occurs when an animal's behavior is followed by a stimulus that increases occurrences of the behavior in the future. [3]
Negative reinforcement
Occurs when a behavior is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus, which causes the occurrences of the behavior to increase in the future. [3]
Positive punishment
Occurs when a behavior is followed by the addition of an aversive stimulus. This causes a decrease in occurrences of behavior in the future. [4]
Negative punishment
Occurs when a behavior is followed by the removal of a stimulus. As a result, the occurrences of the behavior decrease in the future. [5]

Behavior analysts emphasize the use of positive reinforcement for increasing desirable behaviors [6] and negative punishment for decreasing undesirable behaviors. If punishment is going to be used to decrease an undesirable behavior, the animal must be able to receive positive reinforcement for an alternative behavior. [7]

Establishing new behavior

Reinforcement should be provided according to a predetermined schedule. [8] Such a schedule of reinforcement specifies whether all responses or only some are reinforced and includes the following:

Variable ratio
A reinforcer delivery occurs after a set number of responses, but that number varies around an average number. [9]
Fixed ratio
A specific number of responses occur before a reinforcer is delivered. [9]
Variable interval
The first response that is emitted after a set but variable amount of time has elapsed is reinforced. [10]
Fixed interval
The first response that is emitted after a set time has elapsed is reinforced. [11]

While continuous reinforcement in a fixed ratio schedule may be necessary for the initial learning stages, a variable ratio schedule is the most effective at maintaining behavior over long periods of time. [12]

There are various methods animal trainers can use to prompt an animal to respond to a stimulus in a specific way. For example, shaping is a process by which successive approximations are rewarded until the desirable response topography is attained. [13] An animal trainer can use conditioned reinforcers, like clickers, to bridge the interval between response and positive reinforcement. [14] Some stimuli that is considered discriminative are signals, targets and cues. They can be used to prompt a response from an animal, and can be changed to other stimuli or faded in magnitude. [15] In order to delay satiation, reinforcer size should be as small as possible and still be effective for reinforcement. [16] Also, the timing of the delivery of a reinforcer is crucial. Initially the interval between response and consequence must be minimal in order for the animal to associate the consequence with the response. [17]

Other important issues related to this method are:

Other considerations

Certain sub-fields of animal training tend to also have certain philosophies and styles. For example, fields such as:

The Ursar by Theodor Aman, depicting a trainer with a muzzled bear AmanUrsarul.jpg
The Ursar by Theodor Aman, depicting a trainer with a muzzled bear

The degree of trainer protection from the animal and the tasks trained may also vary. They can range from entertainment, husbandry (veterinary) behaviors, physical labor or athleticism, habituation to averse stimuli, interaction (or non-interaction) with other humans, or even research (sensory, physiological, cognitive).

Training also may take into consideration the natural social tendencies of the animal species (or even breed), such as predilections for attention span, food-motivation, dominance hierarchies, aggression, or bonding to individuals (conspecifics as well as humans). Consideration must also be given to practical aspects on the human side such as the ratio of the number of trainers to each animal. In some circumstances one animal may have multiple trainers, in others, a trainer might attend simultaneously to many animals in a training session. Sometimes training is accomplished with a single trainer working individually with a single animal. In some species, the number of trainers is irrelevant, yet it can usually achieve the wanted outcome. [18]

Service animals

Service animals, such as assistance dogs, Capuchin monkeys and miniature horses, are trained to utilize their sensory and social skills to bond with a human and help that person to offset a disability in daily life. The use of service animals, especially dogs, is an ever-growing field, with a wide range of special adaptations.

In the United States, selected inmates in prisons are used to train service dogs. In addition to adding to the short supply of service animals, such programs have produced benefits in improved socialization skills and behavior of inmates.

Entertainment

Morphy, an orangutan with his toy, a horse, on a walk with his keeper in a traveling circus. Bundesarchiv Bild 102-09185, England, Abgerichteter Affe.jpg
Morphy, an orangutan with his toy, a horse, on a walk with his keeper in a traveling circus.

Organizations such as the American Humane Association monitor the use of animals such as those used in the entertainment industry, but they do not monitor their training. It is best known for its end credit disclaimer "No Animals Were Harmed" that appears at the end of the credits of films and shows.

The Patsy Award (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) was originated by the Hollywood office in 1939 after a horse was killed in an on-set accident during the filming of the Tyrone Power film Jesse James . The award now covers both film and television and is separated into four categories: canine, equine, wild and special.

One animal trainer, Frank Inn, received over 40 Patsy awards. While there is a high demand for mammals for film and television, there is also a demand for other animals. Steven R. Kutcher has filled this niche for insects.

Companion animals

Dogs

A trained dog competing in dog agility. Australian Shepherd agility cropped.jpg
A trained dog competing in dog agility.

Basic obedience training tasks for dogs, include walking on a leash, attention, housebreaking, nonaggression, and socialization with humans or other pets. Dogs are also trained for many other activities, such as dog sports, service dogs, and working dog tasks.

Positive reinforcement for dogs can include primary reinforcers like food or social reinforcers, such as vocal ("good boy") or tactile (stroking) ones. Positive punishment, if used at all, can be physical, such as pulling on a leash or spanking. It may also be vocal, such as saying "bad dog". Bridges to positive reinforcement, include vocal cues, whistling, and dog whistles, as well as clickers used in clicker training, a method popularized by Karen Pryor. Negative reinforcement may also be used. Punishment is also a tool, including withholding of food or physical discipline.

Horses

The primary purpose of training horses is to socialize them around humans, teach them to behave in a manner that makes them safe for humans to handle, and, as adults to carry a rider under saddle or to be driven in order to pull a vehicle. As prey animals, much effort must be put into training horses to overcome its natural flight or fight instinct and accept handling that would not be natural for a wild animal, such as willingly going into a confined space, or having a predator (a human being) sit on its back. As training advances, some horses are prepared for competitive sports, up to the Olympic games, where horses are the only non-human animal athlete that is used at the Olympics. All equestrian disciplines from horse racing to draft horse showing require the horse to have specialized training.

A human with a trained horse and a trained Peregrine Falcon Sibylle-Schreiner.jpg
A human with a trained horse and a trained Peregrine Falcon

Unlike dogs, horses are not motivated as strongly by positive reinforcement rewards as they are motivated by other operant conditioning methods such as the release of pressure as a reward for the correct behavior, called negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement techniques such as petting, kind words, rewarding of treats, and clicker training have some benefit, but not to the degree seen in dogs and other predator species. Punishment of horses is effective only to a very limited degree, usually a sharp command or brief physical punishment given within a few seconds of a disobedient act. Horses do not correlate punishment to a specific behavior unless it occurs immediately. They do, however, have a remarkably long memory, and once a task is learned, it will be retained for a very long time. For this reason, poor training or allowing bad habits to be learned can be very difficult to remedy at a later date.

Birds

Typical training tasks for companion birds include perching, non-aggression, halting feather-picking, controlling excessive vocalizations, socialization with household members and other pets, and socialization with strangers. The large parrot species frequently have lifespans that exceed that of their human owners, and they are closely bonded to their owners. Some birds of prey are trained to hunt, an ancient art known as falconry or hawking. In China the practice of training cormorants to catch fish has gone on for over 1,200 years. [19]

Chickens

Chicken on a skateboard Chicken on a skateboard.JPG
Chicken on a skateboard

Training chickens has become a way for trainers of other animals (primarily dogs) to perfect their training technique. Bob Bailey, formerly of Animal Behavior Enterprises and the IQ Zoo, teaches chicken training seminars where trainers teach poultry to discriminate between shapes, to navigate an obstacle course and to chain behaviors together. Chicken training is done using operant conditioning, using a clicker and chicken feed for reinforcement. The first chicken workshops were given by Keller and Marian Breland in 1947–1948 to a group of animal feed salesmen from General Mills, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Trained chickens may be confined to a display (Bird Brain) where they play Tic-Tac-Toe against humans for a fee, invented by Bob Bailey and Grant Evans, of Animal Behavior Enterprises. [20] The moves were chosen by computer and indicated to the chicken by a light invisible to the human player. [21]

Fish and molluscs

Fish can also be trained. For example, goldfish may swim toward their owners and follow them as they walk through the room, but will not follow anyone else. The fish may swim up and down, signalling the owner to turn on its aquarium light when it is off, and it will skim the surface until its owner feeds it. Fish have also been taught to perform more complicated tasks, such as fetching rings, swimming through hoops and tubes, doing the limbo and pushing a miniature soccer ball into a net. [22] [23] Fish have been taught to distinguish and respond differently to slight differences in human faces displayed on a screen (archerfish [24] ) or styles of music (goldfish [25] and koi [26] ).

Molluscs, with totally different brain designs, have been taught to distinguish and respond to geometric symbols (cuttlefish [27] and octopus [28] ), and have been taught that food behind a clear barrier cannot be eaten (squid [29] ).

Wild animals

Zoological parks

Animals in public display are sometimes trained for educational, entertainment, management, and husbandry behaviors. Educational behaviors may include species-typical behaviors under stimulus control such as vocalizations. Entertainment may include display behaviors to show the animal, or simply arbitrary behaviors. Management includes movement, such as following the trainer, entering crates, or moving from pen to pen, or tank-to-tank through gates. Husbandry behaviors facilitate veterinary care. It can include desensitization to various physical examinations or procedures, such as:

Such voluntary training is important for minimizing the frequency with which zoo collection animals must be anesthetized or physically restrained.

Marine mammal parks

Many marine mammals are trained for entertainment such as bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, belugas, sea lions, and others.

In a public display situation, the audience's attention is focused on the animal, rather than the trainer; therefore the discriminative stimulus is generally gestural (a hand sign) and sparse in nature. Unobtrusive dog whistles are used as bridges, and positive reinforcers are either primary (food) or tactile (rub downs), and not vocal. However, pinnipeds and mustelids (sea lions, seals, walruses, and otters) can hear in our frequency, so most of the time they will receive vocal reinforcers during shows and performances. The shows are turned into more of a play production because of this, instead of just a run through of behaviors like cetaceans generally do in their shows. Guests can often hear these vocal reinforcers when attending a SeaWorld show. During the Clyde and Seamore show, the trainers may say something like: "Good grief, Clyde!" or "Good job, Seamore". The trainers substitute the word "good" in the place of food or rubdowns when teaching a specific behavior to the animals so that the animals no longer need constant feeding as praise for achieving the appropriate behavior.

Field research

On an experimental basis, wildlife researchers have employed animal trainers in their interactions with animals in the field. [30]

List of notable animal trainers

Known for their influence on the circus:

Known for scientific research:

Known for earliest commercial application of Skinner's operant conditioning:

Known for work in television and film:

Other:

See also

Related to animal behavior, psychology and training:

Notes

  1. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. x
  2. McGreevy & Boakes, Carrots and Sticks: Principles of Animal Training, p. xi-23
  3. 1 2 Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 78
  4. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 122
  5. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 123
  6. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 2
  7. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 135
  8. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 86
  9. 1 2 Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 88
  10. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 90
  11. Miltenberger, Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures, p. 89
  12. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 21
  13. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 35
  14. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 15
  15. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 70, 75, 77, 79
  16. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 10
  17. Pryor, Don't Shoot the Dog, p. 7-9
  18. Minier, Darren E.; Tatum, Lindsay; Gottlieb, Daniel H.; Cameron, Ashley; Snarr, Jessica; Elliot, Richard; Cook, Ashleigh; Elliot, Kami; Banta, Kimberly; Heagerty, Allison; McCowan, Brenda (2011-07-01). "Human-directed contra-aggression training using positive reinforcement with single and multiple trainers for indoor-housed rhesus macaques". Applied Animal Behaviour Science. 132 (3–4): 178–186. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2011.04.009. ISSN   0168-1591.
  19. [ Displaying Abstract ] (2012-06-10). "nytimes.com: Cormorant Fishing". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-04-09.
  20. Bailey, R. E. & Gillaspy, J. A. (2005). Operant Psychology Goes to the Fair: Marian and Keller Breland in the Popular Press, 1947–1966. The Behavior Analyst No. 2 (Fall)
  21. "Why did the chicken win the game? Conditioning". Star Tribune. 28 August 2018.
  22. "Fish School". Fish School. Retrieved 2013-04-09.
  23. "R2 Fish School – A review". Goldfish Fables. 2016-05-21. Retrieved 2017-12-20.
  24. Newport, Cait; Wallis, Guy; Reshitnyk, Yarema; Siebeck, Ulrike E. (2016-06-07). "Discrimination of human faces by archerfish (Toxotes chatareus)". Scientific Reports. 6 (1): 27523. Bibcode:2016NatSR...627523N. doi:10.1038/srep27523. ISSN   2045-2322. PMC   4895153 . PMID   27272551.
  25. Shinozuka, Kazutaka; Ono, Haruka; Watanabe, Shigeru (2013). "Reinforcing and discriminative stimulus properties of music in goldfish". Behavioural Processes. 99: 26–33. doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2013.06.009. PMID   23796771. S2CID   439990.
  26. Chase, Ava R. (2001-11-01). "Music discriminations by carp (Cyprinus carpio)". Animal Learning & Behavior. 29 (4): 336–353. doi: 10.3758/bf03192900 . ISSN   0090-4996.
  27. Hough, Alexander; Boal, Jean (2014-01-01). "Automation of Discrimination Training for Cuttlefish (Mollusca: Cephalopoda)". Keystone Journal of Undergraduate Research. 2: 15–21 via Shippensburg University.
  28. Bublitz, Alexander; Weinhold, Severine R.; Strobel, Sophia; Dehnhardt, Guido; Hanke, Frederike D. (2017). "Reconsideration of Serial Visual Reversal Learning in Octopus (Octopus vulgaris) from a Methodological Perspective". Frontiers in Physiology. 8: 54. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2017.00054 . ISSN   1664-042X. PMC   5294351 . PMID   28223940.
  29. Zepeda, Emily A.; Veline, Robert J.; Crook, Robyn J. (2017-06-01). "Rapid Associative Learning and Stable Long-Term Memory in the Squid Euprymna scolopes". The Biological Bulletin. 232 (3): 212–218. doi:10.1086/693461. ISSN   0006-3185. PMID   28898600. S2CID   19337578.
  30. Lombardi, Linda (13 February 2018). "Animal Trainers Gone Wild". Hakai Magazine . Retrieved 16 February 2018.
  31. Breland, K., & Breland, M. (1961). The misbehavior of organisms. American Psychologist, 16, 681–684.
  32. Breland, K., & Breland, M. (1951). A field of applied animal psychology. American Psychologist, 6, 202–204.
  33. Breland, K., & Breland, M. (1953, December). The new animal psychology. National Humane Society Review, 10–12.
  34. Bailey, R.E & Gillaspy,J.A. (2005). Operant Conditioning Goes to the Fair: Marian and Keller Breland in the Popular Press. The Behavior Analyst No. 2 (Fall)
  35. Sandra Choron, Harry Choron (2005). Planet Dog: A Doglopedia (illustrated ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p.  44. ISBN   978-0-618-51752-7.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. F. Skinner</span> American psychologist and social philosopher (1904–1990)

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.

Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition of reward or aversive stimuli. The frequency or duration of the behavior may increase through reinforcement or decrease through punishment or extinction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operant conditioning chamber</span> Laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior

An operant conditioning chamber is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. The chamber can be used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus. The term classical conditioning refers to the process of an automatic, conditioned response that is paired with a specific stimulus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reinforcement</span> Consequence affecting an organisms future behavior

In behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular antecedent stimulus. For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever to receive food whenever a light is turned on. In this example, the light is the antecedent stimulus, the lever pushing is the operant behavior, and the food is the reinforcer. Likewise, a student that receives attention and praise when answering a teacher's question will be more likely to answer future questions in class. The teacher's question is the antecedent, the student's response is the behavior, and the praise and attention are the reinforcements.

Radical behaviorism is a "philosophy of the science of behavior" developed by B. F. Skinner. It refers to the philosophy behind behavior analysis, and is to be distinguished from methodological behaviorism—which has an intense emphasis on observable behaviors—by its inclusion of thinking, feeling, and other private events in the analysis of human and animal psychology. The research in behavior analysis is called the experimental analysis of behavior and the application of the field is called applied behavior analysis (ABA), which was originally termed "behavior modification."

The experimental analysis of behavior is a science that studies the behavior of individuals across a variety of species. A key early scientist was B. F. Skinner who discovered operant behavior, reinforcers, secondary reinforcers, contingencies of reinforcement, stimulus control, shaping, intermittent schedules, discrimination, and generalization. A central method was the examination of functional relations between environment and behavior, as opposed to hypothetico-deductive learning theory that had grown up in the comparative psychology of the 1920–1950 period. Skinner's approach was characterized by observation of measurable behavior which could be predicted and controlled. It owed its early success to the effectiveness of Skinner's procedures of operant conditioning, both in the laboratory and in behavior therapy.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clicker training</span> Animal training method

Clicker training is a positive reinforcement animal training method based on a bridging stimulus in operant conditioning. The system uses conditioned reinforcers, which a trainer can deliver more quickly and more precisely than primary reinforcers such as food. The term "clicker" comes from a small metal cricket noisemaker adapted from a child's toy that the trainer uses to precisely mark the desired behavior. When training a new behavior, the clicker helps the animal to quickly identify the precise behavior that results in the treat. The technique is popular with dog trainers, but can be used for all kinds of domestic and wild animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dog training</span> Practice of teaching behaviors to dogs

Dog training is a kind of animal training, the application of behavior analysis which uses the environmental events of antecedents and consequences to modify the dog behavior, either for it to assist in specific activities or undertake particular tasks, or for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life. While training dogs for specific roles dates back to Roman times at least, the training of dogs to be compatible household pets developed with suburbanization in the 1950s.

Shaping is a conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior. The method used is differential reinforcement of successive approximations. It was introduced by B. F. Skinner with pigeons and extended to dogs, dolphins, humans and other species. In shaping, the form of an existing response is gradually changed across successive trials towards a desired target behavior by reinforcing exact segments of behavior. Skinner's explanation of shaping was this:

We first give the bird food when it turns slightly in the direction of the spot from any part of the cage. This increases the frequency of such behavior. We then withhold reinforcement until a slight movement is made toward the spot. This again alters the general distribution of behavior without producing a new unit. We continue by reinforcing positions successively closer to the spot, then by reinforcing only when the head is moved slightly forward, and finally only when the beak actually makes contact with the spot. ... The original probability of the response in its final form is very low; in some cases it may even be zero. In this way we can build complicated operants which would never appear in the repertoire of the organism otherwise. By reinforcing a series of successive approximations, we bring a rare response to a very high probability in a short time. ... The total act of turning toward the spot from any point in the box, walking toward it, raising the head, and striking the spot may seem to be a functionally coherent unit of behavior; but it is constructed by a continual process of differential reinforcement from undifferentiated behavior, just as the sculptor shapes his figure from a lump of clay.

Extinction is a behavioral phenomenon observed in both operantly conditioned and classically conditioned behavior, which manifests itself by fading of non-reinforced conditioned response over time. When operant behavior that has been previously reinforced no longer produces reinforcing consequences the behavior gradually stops occurring. In classical conditioning, when a conditioned stimulus is presented alone, so that it no longer predicts the coming of the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned responding gradually stops. For example, after Pavlov's dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a metronome, it eventually stopped salivating to the metronome after the metronome had been sounded repeatedly but no food came. Many anxiety disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder are believed to reflect, at least in part, a failure to extinguish conditioned fear.

Instinctive drift, alternately known as instinctual drift, is the tendency of an animal to revert to unconscious and automatic behaviour that interferes with learned behaviour from operant conditioning. Instinctive drift was coined by Keller and Marian Breland, former students of B.F. Skinner at the University of Minnesota, describing the phenomenon as "a clear and utter failure of conditioning theory." B.F. Skinner was an American psychologist and father of operant conditioning, which is a learning strategy that teaches the performance of an action either through reinforcement or punishment. It is through the association of the behaviour and the reward or consequence that follows that depicts whether an animal will maintain a behaviour, or if it will become extinct. Instinctive drift is a phenomenon where such conditioning erodes and an animal reverts to its natural behaviour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avoidance response</span> Response that prevents an aversive stimulus

An avoidance response is a response that prevents an aversive stimulus from occurring. It is a kind of negative reinforcement. An avoidance response is a behavior based on the concept that animals will avoid performing behaviors that result in an aversive outcome. This can involve learning through operant conditioning when it is used as a training technique. It is a reaction to undesirable sensations or feedback that leads to avoiding the behavior that is followed by this unpleasant or fear-inducing stimulus.

In operant conditioning, punishment is any change in a human or animal's surroundings which, occurring after a given behavior or response, reduces the likelihood of that behavior occurring again in the future. As with reinforcement, it is the behavior, not the human/animal, that is punished. Whether a change is or is not punishing is determined by its effect on the rate that the behavior occurs. This is called motivating operations (MO), because they alter the effectiveness of a stimulus. MO can be categorized in abolishing operations, decrease the effectiveness of the stimuli and establishing, increase the effectiveness of the stimuli. For example, a painful stimulus which would act as a punisher for most people may actually reinforce some behaviors of masochistic individuals.

Marian Breland Bailey was an American psychologist, an applied behavior analyst who played a major role in developing empirically validated and humane animal training methods and in promoting their widespread implementation. She and her first husband, Keller Breland (1915–1965), studied at the University of Minnesota under behaviorist B. F. Skinner and became "the first applied animal psychologists." Together they wrote the book Animal Behavior which was first published in 1966, after Keller's death.

Errorless learning was an instructional design introduced by psychologist Charles Ferster in the 1950s as part of his studies on what would make the most effective learning environment. B. F. Skinner was also influential in developing the technique, noting that,

...errors are not necessary for learning to occur. Errors are not a function of learning or vice versa nor are they blamed on the learner. Errors are a function of poor analysis of behavior, a poorly designed shaping program, moving too fast from step to step in the program, and the lack of the prerequisite behavior necessary for success in the program.

In behavioral psychology, stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning that occurs when an organism behaves in one way in the presence of a given stimulus and another way in its absence. A stimulus that modifies behavior in this manner is either a discriminative stimulus or stimulus delta. For example, the presence of a stop sign at a traffic intersection alerts the driver to stop driving and increases the probability that braking behavior occurs. Stimulus control does not force behavior to occur, as it is a direct result of historical reinforcement contingencies, as opposed to reflexive behavior elicited through classical conditioning.

Discrimination learning is defined in psychology as the ability to respond differently to different stimuli. This type of learning is used in studies regarding operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the modification of a behavior by means of reinforcement or punishment. In this way, a discriminative stimulus will act as an indicator to when a behavior will persist and when it will not. Classical conditioning involves learning through association when two stimuli are paired together repeatedly. This conditioning demonstrates discrimination through specific micro-instances of reinforcement and non-reinforcement. This phenomenon is considered to be more advanced than learning styles such as generalization and yet simultaneously acts as a basic unit to learning as a whole. The complex and fundamental nature of discrimination learning allows for psychologists and researchers to perform more in-depth research that supports psychological advancements. Research on the basic principles underlying this learning style has their roots in neuropsychology sub-processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine mammal training</span>

Marine mammal training refers to the training and caretaking of various marine mammals, including dolphins, orcas, sea lions, and walruses. This discipline involves teaching these animals behaviors for purposes such as participation in shows, scientific research, military operations, or health and enrichment. Caretaking elements include ensuring the animals' proper diet, habitat maintenance, and health monitoring.

References

Further reading