How can research and science help improve animal training? In this section, you’ll find information about research studies that have explored different animal training techniques and how animals learn. By studying learning and behavior, we can learn more about how animals learn and develop more efficient and effective training techniques.
Last year was one of those really, really busy years. In addition to quite a bit of travel, I redesigned the undergraduate behavior analysis class that I teach. I learned a lot from the redesign process, but it ended up being a tremendously time-consuming project. One thing that I didn’t spend enough time doing last […]
Have you heard of Chaser, the dog who knows 1,000 words? There’s a neat article that was published on the Scientific American blog earlier this week about Chaser and her owner and trainer, Dr. John Pilley. You can find the full article on their site here. Most media reports about Chaser have focused on Chaser’s […]
I'm in Minneapolis for a few days, at the annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International. I am having a great time so far and have gotten a chance to catch up with lots of friends, as well as had time to meet plenty of new ones. My advisor, Dr. Jesus Rosales-Ruiz, […]
I’ve recently started reading Susan Scheider’s fascinating new book, The Science of Consequences. Susan Schneider is a biopsychologist who has spent years studying learning and behavior in both people and animals. (You can read more about her background on her bio on her website.) The Science of Consequences is a fascinating journey through the science […]
So, elephants can’t mimic human speech. Right? Actually… wrong. Koshi, an Asian elephant at a South Korean zoo can do just this. Scientists from the University of Vienna saw video clips of Koshi on YouTube. At first, they thought just what I did — this must be fake! However, they’ve been studying Koshi and his […]
I’ve just uploaded an article to my site that you need to read. It’s by behavior analyst Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, who is a professor at the University of North Texas. The article is about B.F. Skinner, shaping, trial and error learning, errorless learning, and Isreal Goldiamond’s constructional approach. Clicker training originated out of research conducted […]
