I was surfing
Karen Pryor's web site and
ran across a wonderful training resource called
Practice Your
Clicker Timing. It's a Macromedia Shockwave application that
lets you practice your clicker training skills online by simulating
a pigeon in a Skinner box.
The page is densely packed with information, and what may get lost
in the information overload is that you need to actually click on
the virtual pellets to dispense a treat; clicking elsewhere has no
effect at all. It took me a few minutes to figure that out, even
though this is mentioned in the first paragraph of explanatory
text. (Doh!)
Anyway, while I don't know how accurate the simulation really is, I
played with it long enough to realize that it
does help
the casual trainer to improve their efficiency and to understand
some of the trade-offs involved in various reinforcement schedules.
After some early failures, I managed to eventually get the pigeon
to peck the target at rates as high as 588 repetitions in a
30-second period.
Interestingly enough, once I reached rates that high, using less
reinforcement reduced the overall rate of performance, but
increased the total effort (or "pecks per treat") that the
virtual pigeon was willing to put in. This would appear to be a
good example of how to use extinction bursts and variable
reinforcement schedules to increase a desired behavior.
For example, I doled out 22 treats over 30 seconds at the pigeon's
peak rate, for an overall reinforcement schedule of 26.7 pecks per
treat. When I cut the reinforcement rate in half, to 11 treats over
the next 30-second period, the pigeon only provided 491 pecks, but
at an astonishing 44.6 pecks per treat!
Looked at another way, I improved the potency of the rewards I was
handing out by a whopping 167% at the expense of total work effort
provided by the pigeon, which dropped by about 16.5%. Whether it is
intrinsically more valuable to maximize efficiency of rewards or
total work effort in real-life applications is, of course, a
complicated question to which I have no immediate answer.
It's also worth noting that the simulation doesn't take external
cues into account. What it's simulating is the effects of the
trainer's timing and use of reinforcement rates on an animal's
spontaneous behavior. This
does serve the purpose of
reminding the trainer (especially those from a command-based
background) that behaviors can be taught in a reliable, solid way
long before a cue is added. However, recognizing that the
simulation is about shaping, rather than cueing, is critical to
getting the most out of the experience.
Don't let all this pseudo-scholarly analysis scare you away from
the site, though. It's worth repeating that this is a great tool
for beginning clicker trainers. The fact that one can use it to
explore theory and advanced techniques is a plus, but certainly not
a prerequisite.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in clicker training. Try
it out, and let me know what you think.