Author Archives: mkm5173

Classical Conditioning & Dogs

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My family occasionally breeds dogs so we have 7 Cavalier King Charles Spaniels (CKCS) and 2 Newfoundlands. Although we have a lot of land for them to run free and an electrical fence so they won’t leave, we also have outdoor pens for them to stay in. On nice days when the CKCS want to be outside but nobody will be around to keep a closer eye on them, we put them in the outdoor pens. This way they get to spend time running around outside but because they are a smaller breed, we don’t have to worry about their protection.

We have 3 cages and typically divide the CKCS up depending on which ones get along best. Some of them are picky and prefer certain dogs over others. When we first started using the outdoor pens we would take treats and stand in the pens so the dogs would follow us in. When the right dogs came into their pen they would get treats and we would take the other dogs out. Then we would go into the next pen and repeat until each dog was in the right pen.

After only a few weeks,  the dogs began to go in their specific pen on their own and wait for their treats. At this point, if we walk outside and go even slightly in the direction of the pens, they will automatically assume that they are going to the outdoor pens and run to sit inside the doorway of their pens. Sometimes the dogs  will even do this when we don’t mean to put them in the pens.

Classical conditioning is learning that occurs by learning to associate stimuli. In the example of my dogs, the unconditioned stimuli was the dog treats. The unconditioned response was for the dogs to come to us to get the treat. Then after conditioning took place, the conditioned stimulus became us walking outside in the general direction of the pens and the conditioned response is for the CKCS to run to their specific pen and sit inside the doorway. Occasionally there will be times when we don’t use the pens for awhile, like in the winter, and extinction will occur where the dogs will not react to us walking towards the pens. However, once we bring treats to the outdoor pens the dogs will experience spontaneous recovery and go into their correct pens.

Implanting Memories

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a memory of being very young, about 1 to 2 years old max, and being carried around a family party. I’m not sure who was carrying me, but they were holding me so that my back was to them and I could face forward. I can vividly picture family members conversing and being carried past my fireplace and towards our decorated living room, filled with people. However, this isn’t a true memory, it is something that has been implanted in me as one, but it never actually happened… or at least not as I think it did. One of the reasons I know that this is an implanted memory, is because the part of the living room I was moving toward didn’t exist when I was that young. My family didn’t add the addition on until I was about 5 or 6 and it wasn’t ‘decorated’ until i was at least 7. There is no possible way for me to be carried past our fireplace into our living room when i was 2.

Growing up I’ve always been told by my parents how ‘nosy’ I was as a child, and still am to this day. They explained that if anything was going on, they had to carry me facing forward so that I could see. I hated to face over their shoulder and be left out of anything or not know what was going on. Each time my parents tell me about these tendencies, has caused me to build my own false memory piecing together each little thing that they have said. This is an example of a false memory being implanted. For years I believed that it was a real memory, but now that I know that we can create false memories off of things that people have told us, I realize that it is definitely something I made up in my own mind.

Behaviorism & Dog Training

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Learning about the theory of Behaviorism in class has reminded me a lot about my efforts to train my dog. The theory of Behaviorism, as taken from our class lecture says, “mental events are triggered by external stimuli which leads to behaviors.” Basically this means that reinforcements can be used to encourage a behavior, and punishments can discourage a behavior. Many people have heard of the famous case study where the dogs were trained to salivate at the sound of a bell. This happened because the dogs repeatedly received food immediately after hearing a bell ring. This repetition caused the dogs to expect food once they heard the bell, whether or not food was present.

In the case of training my dog, a Newfoundland named Guinness, I reinforce behaviors with treats or praise. When she does something that I don’t want her to do, I discourage the behavior by ignoring her. While going to puppy training class, I was able to teach her regular commands with the help of an instructor, things such as ‘sit,’ stay,’ ‘come,’ ‘lay down.’ However, it wasn’t until I began teaching her tricks on my own that I noticed the correlation with the theory of behaviorism. While Guinness is very smart, she sometimes does not feel like participating and doing what I ask. This is when the reinforcement of the treats comes in handy. Whether she wants to or not, if Guinness knows I have a treat in my hand she will pay attention to me.

With a treat in one hand, I teach Guinness new tricks by saying the command and waiting for her to do what I want. Once she has done what I asked, I immediately give her a treat. For a trick like ‘shake,’ I had to begin by saying the word ‘shake’ and lifting her paw for her and shaking it, then giving her the treat. After repeating that multiple times, Guinness began to lift her paw on her own when I would say the command. For many weeks I rewarded Guinness for putting her paw in my hand when I said the word ‘shake,’ and now she has become conditioned to do it regardless of whether or not I have a treat for her. Using this method, I have also taught her how to do tricks like ‘roll’ and to ‘whisper’ when she needs to be quiet.

Since Guinness is a dog, it is obviously not the same as conditioning a human to perform certain behaviors, but it is still very similar. Many teachers and people who work with children use behaviorism to teach their children things like appropriate classroom behaviors. Anyone who has ever accepted a bribe has done something because of the reinforcement presented. Behaviorism is all around us, and across all kinds of species.