We’ve been talk about shaping in class, which is one of the neatest things about clicker training. (Actually, there are a lot of neat things about clicker training!) Shaping is teaching a new behavior through successive approximations. Basically, you start with a very low criteria and gradually increase your criteria until you reach your target behavior. For example, you could first teach a horse to approach a trailer, then teach it to put 2 feet in the trailer, then 4 feet, then walk to the front of the trailer. By breaking the behavior down into small steps, you can create a new behavior without anything ever becoming too difficult or scary for the horse.
(Visit this article from DogTrainingology for even more information about shaping!)
This is a great little story that our textbook gives:
Skinner told this story. A committee he was on brought in Eric Fromm as a guest. “All morning long he had easy explanations for everything. And after lunch it was the same thing. We were all seated at a big table, a couple dozen of us. He was sitting across the table from me and he started in. ‘Pigeons aren’t people you know,’ he told me. ‘You have to realize that man is different.; He went on and on. I wrote a note saying, ‘Watch Fromm’s left hand. I’m going to shape a chopping motion.’ I passed the note down to the chairman. I just turned toward [Fromm] and every time his hand went up, I nodded. Pretty soon he was chopping and chopping the air with his left hand as he spoke. I thought, ‘Why does he say this doesn’t work with people?'” (cited in Snyder, 1990: p. 4)
This is a video a recently found on youtube–she shapes her dog to blow bubbles in it’s water dish! Not very practical, but it’s incredibly cute to watch!
Enjoyed the Skinner “refresher” here. Hard to believe I spent a few days explaining Skinner to my high school psych classes – this was in the late 1970s. I ran into Skinner theory again when I began to learn about performance-based training, as applied to corporate training and interpreted by Robert Mager, a student of Skinner.
In Mager’s workshop I was introduced to Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor. I assume you are acquainted with this little gem? I see on Amazon that she updated the book in 2002, but I had read the first edition.
Hi Richard,
I love “Don’t Shoot the Dog.” I think it’s a great, easy to understand introduction to Skinner’s ideas and the study of behavior. Besides being informative, Karen Pryor also does a good job of keeping the chapters interesting and fun.
I’ve only read the updated edition, which I hear is slightly different from the original. I’m currently reading Karen Pryor’s “Lads Before the Wind,” which is her narrative of her early days dolphin training in the 60s and 70s. It’s a fascinating look at how she first explored the principles of operant conditioning.
Mary H.
Nice blog. Keep up the good work.
Hi is this your dog ? Very well taken care off. Well groomed too.
cutecute28–
This is not actually my dog, but a video from youtube that I really like.
Here’s some info about my dog, if you’re interested!
http://stalecheerios.com/blog/meet-the-animals/ginger/
cheers,
Mary H.
It made me think. How long would it have taken Koehler to trained something like in the video?