Tag Archives: shaping

Operant Conditioning and Shaping: Dog Plays Dead

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At the end of last summer, my family bought a new golden retriever puppy to add to the family.  Our old golden retriever had been the most well behaved dog around so it was only right to get another retriever.  My family loves teaching our dogs tricks so they can show them off to neighbors so it did not surprise me that the training started within a few days. It was not until taking psychology that I realized the psychological discoveries and aspects that are used in everyday life.  Operant conditioning and shaping helped me understand how our dog came to learn these ticks and how it happened so quickly.  Operant conditioning is when an association is formed between behaviors and resulting events.  Giving the dog a treat for their good behavior is commonly and widely used.  We also used shaping without even realizing it.  Shaping is guiding behavior closer toward the desired behavior.  This was necessary to get the puppy to do tricks that are more advanced.

With our dog, we were able to place a treat on her nose and have her sit there until we said “okay”.  Then she would flip the treat up in the air and catch it in her mouth on the way down.  We had to shape her by teaching her to catch the treat normally first and how to sit.  When our new dog got home everyone so excited to teach it that trick because it seemed to woo everyone.  To me, that was our old dog’s trick and this one needed a new one.  I came up with the idea to teach our dog to play dead on one single command and began my efforts without the family knowing.  I would give the dog a treat every time she got the desired behavior right, which I know was an example of classic operant conditioning.  Teaching a dog to play dead seems simple but it was more work than expected.  That is where the shaping came into play.

First, my family taught the dog to sit down. Easy enough. Then from there we had to teach her to lay down.  She picked that up easily with the help of me pushing her down a couple times.  Then I when they were not around I would proceed the shaping in the ultimate goal to get her to play dead on one command.  Next, I had to get her to roll over which was even harder than the first two commands.  All these commands took a different word to get her to do so now I needed something to link all three together.  After she was able to roll over every time I said it, she would go all the way back to her upright position, but I needed her to stay on her back.  During the last stage, I held her on her back and would give her the treat while she was still facing upwards so she would learn she has to stay in that position to get the treat.  From her sitting position, I would push her over onto her back in one fluid motion, hold her there and then give her the treat.

Soon enough with a little time, commitment, operant conditioning, and shaping; I was able to point a finger gun at my dog and say bang, and she would fall to the floor and lie on her back.  My parents and siblings were impressed with the trick and got a good laugh out of it too.  Playing dead became my new dog’s signature move so my parents could woo the guests.  So far, the audiences have not been disappointed.   While learning this in psychology, I found it interesting how people everywhere already use these methods and may not even know the details behind conditioning and shaping and unconsciously know how they work.  I thought it was interesting how psychology can tie into and exhibited in everyday life.

Above is a quick video I uploaded of my sister performing the completed trick with my dog so you can see how the intended, final trick is performed.  poor quality but achieves its intended purpose.  The dog did it flawlessly and the conditioning worked well despite the dogs lethargic attitude.

 

Shaping

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Have you ever had a pet and wanted to teach them to perform a trick or do a certain behavior?  Shaping is an excellent method that’s used for these tasks.  Shaping, as defined by Professor Wede from class, is a technique used to guide a certain behavior closer towards the desired behavior.  Many people associate this type of teaching with pets, usually dogs.  For example, if one wanted to teach their dog to roll over, they first need to get the dog to sit, then lay down and then ultimately roll over.  A type of reward should be used in order for the dog to understand that they are doing something that is pleasing to their owner.

Last summer, my parents and I got a new puppy, Sophie.  Since Sophie was still so young when we first brought her home, we did not really focus on teaching her tricks, rather we focused on simple commands like coming when she is called and to sit.  After the housebreaking process, Sophie was able to let us know when she needed to go outside.  Since our yard does not have a fence, we still take her out on the leash so she does not get too far from the house.  The sight of the leash is really exciting for Sophie, so she tends to jump up and bite the leash while we try to hook it to her collar.  In order to try to stop the jumping, we tell Sophie to sit by the door.  When she would eventually sit, we give her some sort of reward, usually a treat or a small piece of cheese, and then praise her for sitting.  Now, after Sophie has told us she needs to go outside, she immediately goes to the door to sit down and wait for us to the put the leash on her collar.  I will admit, she still gets pretty wild when she sees the leash, but she calms down enough for us to be able to easily put on the leash.

Shaping is a very helpful and easy method to use when it comes to training animals.  Positive reinforcement is also used in shaping because the trainer is using positive stimuli to increase a specific behavior.  When Sophie would successfully sit when we asked, we would reward her with food.  This presentation of a positive stimuli teaches Sophie that sitting is a good thing, and she will increase performing that specific behavior in the future.

Operant Conditioning- How I Taught My Dog to Bark

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Operant conditioning is a learning technique used by many psychologists and is a little different than classical conditioning. While classical conditioning is a type of learning where an organism learns to associate stimuli and therefore elicits a conditioned response, operant conditioning is where the organism forms an association between behaviors and resulting events. This tool is not only used by psychologists, but also anyone who decides to teach their pet how to perform a trick. Shaping is used in order to guide the animal to perform a desired behavior. This ultimate behavior might be the dog rolling over. However, it would probably take a lot of time and would be extremely frustrating to teach a dog by simply instructing it to “roll over” without any other assistance. By just saying “roll over”, the dog isn’t going to know what the means or what you want them to do. Teaching through successive approximations can help guide the dog from a standing position to the rolling over motion through multiple steps.

Positive reinforcement is another tool that can be used to get an animal to perform a desired behavior. When the dog exhibits a desired behavior, you give it a treat. Since dogs love treats, this is considered a positive stimulus. Now the dog has associated the action her or she performed with getting a treat, it will increase that behavior to continue getting more treats. Now, let’s get back to how successive approximations would work. In order to get your dog from a standing position to rolling over, the first step to take is to instruct it to sit. Once the dog sits, you can give it a treat. Then, you can work on getting your dog to lie down. Once it does, give it another treat. Now, you can work on teaching it to roll over, giving it a treat after it lies on its back and then again after it fully rolls over. Now, when you tell the dog to roll over, it will know the behavior you want it to exhibit.

I used a similar process as I explained above when I was teaching my dog to speak. Ever since she was 8 weeks old, she didn’t bark at all unless she was scared. It was crucial that I taught her to speak whenever she needed to go to the bathroom. She would simply stand or sit at the door. On occasion, she would bark or growl softly, but it wasn’t loud enough that I could hear from very far away. You can imagine that we had a few accidents when she was a puppy when I wasn’t paying attention to her and didn’t know she had to go out.

Once I knew she barked a little when she was waiting at the door, I was constantly watching her. Whenever she would walk over to the door, I would wait to see if she’d bark. When she did softly, I would give her a treat, praise her, and take her outside. I did this a few times and her bark grew a little louder. After a day or two, she would begin to bark when I was no longer standing right there at the door with her. I’d give her a treat for barking and take her outside. Then, her barks got louder, to the point where I could hear them when I wasn’t even in the same room. Since I rewarded her after she barked and then took her outside, she associated the barking behavior with the event of me taking her out and then rewarding her afterward. Now I know when she needs to go out wherever I am in the house. She hasn’t begun to bark in response to anything else so now I know exactly what she needs and when she needs it. Operant conditioning was a very easy process, especially since my dog picked up on it so quickly.

Operant Conditioning

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Being a part of the Women’s Volleyball team is an incredible experience and opportunity. However it also can be very hard. The beauty about the way Coach Rose runs the program is that he accepts, encourages and appreciates all of the different playing styles that individuals bring to the team. Yet, being a stickler for tradition, there are many behaviors that you quickly are forced to learn and do. So in a way, I am trying to relate our volleyball program and learning process to operant conditioning. When talking about shaping with the dog, I somehow spin it in my head to relate to my training. With the dog, the reinforce guides behavior closer towards a desired behavior. So if you want to dog to roll over you have to teach him in steps; give him the treat when he sits, then when he lays down and finally when he rolls over. Similar to training, you can’t spike a ball without first learning the footwork, and arm swing. For myself, I am a backrow player. When I first got to college all I wanted to do was jump in and play with the big girls… until I realized my skill level wasn’t quite at their speed. It was kind of like asking a puppy to run before it knew how to walk. So I had to start with the puppy training. I started with doing floor work and moving without the ball, practicing sprawls, dives, rolls and etc each and every way. Next came working in the ball off a toss with a partner, then off a hit ball, then a live approach to finally a live game. The only way these stages progressively worked however was by performing each step the desired way. I would get a compliment or be allowed to move onto the next step of the process if I did it right (my doggie treat), and would stay at the same level, most likely getting yelled at or corrected until I did it the right way.

As for the team, coach holds a couple cardinal traditional rules that you don’t want to break. One of them being always go for a ball with two hands. “ God gave you two for a reason, USE THEM” hell say; the other being, never let a ball drop without going to the floor with it, if you miss a serve, you hit the floor and roll, if somebody passes your serve with your hands you do pushups, if the ball goes between your legs you do a suicide and so on. Coming in as a freshman, is kind of a “ figure it out yourself” kind of thing; it’s what makes us so tough. So similar to the dog analogy, you can tell the dog don’t do this, don’t do that but do this, yet words don’t always get through to them as much as the actions that follow each behavior. There were no written rules about the ones my coach holds you accountable for anywhere but I quickly figured them out when I was continually punished for breaking each one of them. Then, you could say there was always negative reinforcement being used where by removing going with one hand, missing serves and serving easy balls (decreasing inappropriate behavior and increasing the desired behavior), the negative stimuli (doing suicides, running, or holding defensive position for 40 minutes was removed.

Although we train like dogs, WE still ARE….. Nittany Lions.