Sniffy Training

I just installed the Sniffy program and began to work with Sniffy for the first time. Honestly, it was a bit frustrating at first - instead of stopping after magazine training, I kept confusedly kept going for an extra thirty minutes. I did get Sniffy to push the bar, but not as the program had intended. Since that extra time and those extra attempts showed on my cumulative record, I had to start the entire process over. After I understood what I was supposed to do, I spent approximately 21 minutes magazine training and 44 minutes shaping.

This is a picture of my cumulative record for magazine training:

These are pictures of my cumulative record for shaping (the CR would not fit in one frame):

Looking back, my mistake led me have a greater appreciation for the amount of patience required for the training process. Sure, I got frustrated, and by hour two I may have restored to verbally encouraging or admonishing Sniffy for his successful or unsuccessful bar-pressing behaviors, respectively...but I was certainly better at magazine training the second time around. I felt like I had a better grasp on the program and on Sniffy's behaviors. I think the same will hold true for training Rosie: I bet I'll get frustrated with her (and I'm sure she'll get frustrated with me if I fail to observe one of Pryor's laws of shaping), but now I know that these things just take time and persistence.

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Today, I finished the Sniffy program assignment. Knowing the program better this time around definitely helped, as did the option to "Isolate Sniffy" or put him on accelerated time! Thanks to the accelerated time option, this half of Sniffy work went much by much more quickly and smoothly. First, I put him on a FI-50 reinforcement schedule. I noticed that it took a while for Sniffy to acclimate to this new reinforcement schedule - about 10 cumulative record windows worth of time! I noticed that at the beginning, Sniffy pressed the lever many times within the 50 second interval, perhaps indicative of how a real rat would be confused or frustrated and press the lever more at the beginning. However, within approximately 40 minutes (judging from the cumulative record), Sniffy began to press the lever only right before the time interval had expired.

Here are pictures of my cumulative record for the reinforcement schedule (since I had 10 frames, I picked out the ones where the changes can really be seen - CRs 1, 2, 3, and 10):

After a successful fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, I put Sniffy on extinction. I definitely saw evidence on the cumulative record of the extinction burst - Sniffy pressed the lever many many times in the first 5 minutes. After that, however, the rates of lever pressing fell pretty dramatically and then evened out to less than 2 presses per 5 minute interval around the 15 minute mark. Of course, I have to keep in mind that training and going through this whole process with Rosie will not be as neat or timely, but I do feel more comfortable and ready to begin training her after completing the Sniffy program.

Here are pictures of my cumulative record for extinction:

Pictured below is Sniffy after extinction was complete.