These are my notes from some of the lectures I attended at the 38th annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International, which I attended in May 2012. On the first day of the ABAI convention, I was able to attend a very interesting lecture by Harvard psychologist Irene Pepperberg. You might be familiar […]
Alright readers, here’s a challenge for you. Check out this youtube clip below of a raven, who is being trained to peck at a yellow bowling pin. He has two choices–peck yellow or peck blue. If he pecks the correct pin, he receives a bit of food as a reward. If he pecks the incorrect […]
I love hearing Steve Martin speak. (the bird trainer, not the actor!) He was one of my favorite speakers at the 2009 Art and Science of Animal Training conference and I enjoyed his talk at this year’s conference just as much. These are a few of my thoughts from his talk. Steve Martin is a […]
by Martin Pettitt, on Flickr I volunteer with ORCA at the Heard Museum about once a week. (ORCA is a lab in UNT’s behavior analysis department that focuses on animal training.) One project for this semester is crate training the museum’s two blue and gold macaws. During the fall and spring, Texas can have crazy […]
I recently finished reading Irene Pepperburg’s most recent book, Alex and Me. When Irene Pepperburg first started working with Alex, many people scoffed and laughed at her. Parrots were thought of as “bird brains.” While it might be possible to teach them to repeat back answers to simple questions, the bird wasn’t actually “thinking” or […]
Welcome to first edition the clicker carnival, a new blog carnival especially for clicker trainers and positive animal trainers. I recently heard someone ask if horse (clicker) trainers could learn anything from dog (clicker) trainers. The answer, of course, is a resounding Yes! Even when the species is different, the principles of reinforcement, shaping and […]
