Reinforcement Timing Explained
Last night was another successful
evening as a group-lesson trainer. AS will always interfere with my
ability to make social adjustments on-the-fly with other people,
but there are moments of brilliance when I feel really good about
my ability to distill complex ideas into something palatable to
other people.
Last night had a few such moments. One of the most interesting ones
was when I was explaining to Robin why I thought a number of the
students were having trouble with mastering the lessons.
"It's all about timing," I said. "Timing is the second-most
important skill for reinforcement training of any kind. Here, let
me prove it to you. What's two plus two?"
Robin hesitated only a fraction of a second, clearly trying to
figure out what I was up to, but promptly replied with
"Four."
I didn't respond immediately. I just gazed at her steadily for
about five seconds or so, deliberately letting the silence drag on.
"Right?" she asked, clearly trying to fill the uncomfortable
pause.
I let this pregnant moment drag on another few seconds, until the
it was stretched to its breaking point. "You're right," I said.
"It's four. So, do you feel rewarded?"
She grinned and laughed, having gotten my point immediately. The
demonstration had made a very visceral impact with her, as I think
it would with most people.
Clearly, there's a window of opportunity when using praise or other
reinforcers for training. If you wait too long, anxiety and
uncertainty creep in, and the subject is left twisting in the
wind.
Some books I've read put the maximum effective window at about 30
seconds when using a conditioned bridging stimulus such as a
clicker, but I'd guess that this window is actually a lot smaller
for the average non-clicker trainer, and even smaller yet for those
who use aversive training methods.
Explaining the importance of timing, both in marking an event and
in delivering the reward, is a hard lesson to teach the average
student. Most people can't deal in abstracts; human examples with
gut-level, emotional reactions are probably much more accessible.
In the long run, teaching the average person on an emotional level,
rather than an intellectual one, might be more effective.