Is this something brand new or just a principle every parent is well aware of ?
Often times we ignore this topic a bit too much. It is something we think happens naturally.
At the time when we are planning to acquire an animal, let's say in our household many of us are captivated of the image that we have in our mind;
- What would that kind of life be - a life with our favorite animal or breed?
Which is good!
No-one would ever get involved with animals if we'd be too pessimistic. Everyone needs a dream to be fulfilled.
Often times we can accomplish those goals but sometimes the reality is utterly and completely different; "There's something wrong with my pet, it's not operating the way I anticipated !"
The word operate in the previous sentence is intentional. Animals have characters, they are different from one another. I remember when I was consulting one dog owner how surprised she was when she had acquired their second dog in the family as a companion to themselves as well as to the "old faithful" one. The breed was the same and so was the sex, both were females of a commonly recognized "easy" dog breed.
Which is good!
No-one would ever get involved with animals if we'd be too pessimistic. Everyone needs a dream to be fulfilled.
Often times we can accomplish those goals but sometimes the reality is utterly and completely different; "There's something wrong with my pet, it's not operating the way I anticipated !"
The word operate in the previous sentence is intentional. Animals have characters, they are different from one another. I remember when I was consulting one dog owner how surprised she was when she had acquired their second dog in the family as a companion to themselves as well as to the "old faithful" one. The breed was the same and so was the sex, both were females of a commonly recognized "easy" dog breed.
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| "Man's best buddy " |
But still - the characteristics that they had were very far from one another. Each individual had its own personality and preferences.
Another example is bit more sad - a single parent had bought a nice looking dog of a fine breed for the family to be a additional companion, only the breed was one of the shepherds. They lived in a block of flat. The situation was unfortunately not very good - this time due to the reason that innate behavior needs of that breed were not met with the individual.
The diversity of animals and their characteristics - that they have "personalities" is something that is actually very moving to me. I've thought of it many times, how rich our nature is. With domestic animals we can rather easily see these differences but I was truly moved about this fact already when I was working with dolphins.
I was just mesmerized of the vast variety animal kingdom has.
If we think of it a bit more closely;
- In the North Sea area (= Ascobans agreement area *) there is, according to the SCANS II research, an estimate of 2000 individuals of bottlenosed dolphins (tursiops truncatus) and an estimate of 75 000 individuals of short-peaked common dolphins (delphinus delphis). If we imagine that each of them have their own preferences and characteristic's say for example of which kind food they'd prefer, what is the favorite play or companion etc.
The thought of it is just breathtaking !
*ASCOBANS = Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas, www.asconbans.org
What is the feedback we're giving ..or getting?
So - when we are accomplishing and building up a relationship with any animal under our care we should always also take into account the animal factor (ref. human factor) of each individual.
This is something you can't learn from any book or publication. You just need to spend time with those animals!
Ever heard of feedback loops or of a Premack principle in animal training & animal care?
If you haven't don't worry it is ok. These are not very commonly used.
A behavior is determined by it's consequences !
This is one of the main principles in animal behavior training. Very commonly we are using food as the main way of reinforcing our animals when they are performing a behavior we've been asking them to do. Some primary reinforcer is used which is highly valued by the animal in question and food is an easy option and usually it has a high value by the animals.
But ...
- why there is always a BUT in almost everything we go through ??
This one however is a good one.
What if the animal is not feeling good or there is some other facture why food loses its value? ..or maybe it is a species or breed of which food intake is very low? How to work then?
One solution is to use secondary reinforcers. Those are extremely valuable in any training situation - whether it is our dog, budgie or even our beloved children we are raising.
Sometimes establishing a valuable secondary reinforcement needs a bit of training - or at least thinking. - What is or can be trained to be valuable to the individual in question?
I'm tempted to say that almost everything by the means of conditioning and making it very positive for the individual in question. In real life, as we all know, it is not always that easy.
However there are a few "ace's" to be used in this kind of situations.
Premack principle?
Let's look at this one first.
This behavioral principle is named after its originator, psychologist David Premack.
He was studying cebus monkeys when he made interesting notices when observing their play behavior with different toys. Some toys were more favoured than others. After a while he gave longer access to the toys they chose to play with most frequently, but only after they had played a while with the other not so favourable toys. The monkeys picked up this soon and played with less desirable toys to get access to the the more desired ones.
Soon after discovering this David did similar test on children with preference on eating candy or playing pinball. He found the same results.
The question is: Do we need a scientist to find this type of thing out?
I wonder how many are familiar with a phrase that goes something like this; "You need to clean up your room before you get to play your video game!"
So in a nutshell we as well as animals will do things we enjoy doing (higher probability) over things that we don't that much enjoy doing (lower probability). The principle means that organisms will do something they don't quite like doing (like exercise, or as in teh example; the cleaning of the room) in order to do something that they do like to do (like playing a video game or eating delicious snacks etc.). Some refer this also as "Grandma's rule"; - "You need to eat some veggies before you'll get any cake."
The Premack principle states that a higher probability behavior will reinforce a less probable behavior.
So -to answer the question above; Did we need a scientist to make this conclusion?
Obviously ...
Many of us parent do know how this works. Also it is noticeable that one thing is rewarding to one kid as it can be a punishment to another. By generalization - the same applies to animals as well.
It seems like David took a longer path to get this conclusion but his work did form a basis on many later psychological treatments and studies. Obviously it also made a change in the concept of reward - it can be also individually rewarding behaviour - not only ie. food related reinforcement.
Positive feed back loop in building the trust
As I mentioned this is not very often referred in animal training - but basically this is all about making a reliable and rewarding environment for the animal under our care to live and grow in.
Of course we need to think of rewards, reinforcements, different stimulus and enrichments in their environment.
Positive feedback loops are most often referred when speaking of ie bio-chemical balances in our body; Like how sugar levels are reacting in our body after a good lunch (presuming of course one is not diabetic.)
Another example of positive feedback loop could be a herd of animals; When one of the individuals in the herd gets for some reason scared - it affects others, thus reinforcing them to get frightened which on the other hand may then reinforce the one starting this chain of herd behavior. As an end result all this will escalate the herd to go into a wild panic of all individuals.
We all wish to give the best care to the animals under our care. It also involves a good relationship with them. In order to build up the relationship we need positive reinforcers but not only primary reinforcers. It is quite the same as it is with kids: We don't just feed them candy in order to get our relationship with them reliable and trustworthy.
Same applies with animals - we need primary and secondary reinforcers but also high valued behavioural reinforcement on our behalf...and time with them. Sometimes a time spend with your animal without doing anything is the most valuable time you both can have !
The idea behind positive feedback loop is to be able to get a continued Premack's principle in training or everyday life.
In positive feedback loop a behavior A is reinforcing behavior B which on the other hand is reinforcing the occurrence of the behavior A.
So - if our relationship is building up well we are actually reinforcing good and "appropriate" behavior just by giving the animal our attention.
Self reinforcing behaviors are often correlated to unappropriate or unwanted behaviors - but what if we manage to create an atmosphere where just by being with the animal or showing affection to it, would be most valued feedback - a different kind of jackpot in rewarding the animal?
What are self reinforcing behaviors?
When animal makes the decision in behaving the way we've asked it to behave, wouldn't you say that it is then made by free choice? The possibility of choice is the key element of animal welfare. Having good welfare can be said to be self reinforcing to the individual.
Are you getting my idea behind this topic?
If an animal wants to join us or "please" us by choosing to behave the way we've asked them - even if that would have some training history behind it? Wouldn't that be then rewarding to the animal? The animal may experience our presence or affection or attention etc etc somehow rewarding to itself.
I believe that we have then managed to established trust in our relationship. A trust that is based on a positive feedback loop. We may reinforce animal via primary reinforcer or secondary reinforcer - it doesn't really matter which way. The key idea is that the relationship is on a solid ground of our common history, which on the other hand has builded up a devoted and reliable trust.
In other words; we've created a positive atmosphere or a positive feedback loop which has and is reinforcing us and the animal in making the trust ever stronger.
In short - This really isn't any "rocket science". It is more like a way of life with a twist of animal factor and human factor heavily involved in every day life we are living with our animal companions.
(The title & context of this blog is based on thoughts from a manuscript I am processing on animal training. )
Kai Mattsson
Meritime Consulting
www.meritime.net
https://www.facebook.com/Meritime-345171735503394/
