Weight chart

Here is Rosie's weight chart throughout training (as we can see from the chart, Rosie's weight fluctuated throughout training from 165.2 grams to 182.0 grams):

Rat: Rosie

Trainers: Brian and Liz

Target weight = 165 g

Date	Weight	Food
9/11	180.0 g	2.4 g
9/12	172.0 g	6.1 g
9/13	171.6 g	4.0 g
9/14	167.9 g	4.0 g
9/15	165.8 g	9.2 g
9/16	167.6 g	8.0 g
9/17	165.2 g	10.0 g
9/18	169.7 g	10.1 g
9/19	168.1 g	10.0 g
9/20	168.1 g	10.1 g
9/21	171.6 g	9.7 g
9/22	171.5 g	9.9 g
9/23	171.2 g	9.1 g
9/24	173.6 g	8.2 g
9/25	177.8 g	7.0 g
9/26	176.2 g	7.9 g
9/27	175.6 g	8.5 g
9/28	178.7 g	7.2 g
9/29	180.5 g	5.9 g
9/30	176.6 g	6.2 g
10/1	176.5 g	6.0 g
10/2	174.5 g	6.1 g
10/3	177.0 g	5.3 g
10/4	176.4 g	4.9 g
10/5	182.0 g	4.0 g
10/6	177.2 g	4.2 g
10/7	168.4 g	7.1 g
10/8	169.0 g	Free Feed

Final post

This was certainly a learning experience! I'm pretty proud of myself for overcoming my initial anxiety about handling a rat, so I'd definitely consider that a personal achievement! Academically, I appreciate the live rat experience - it definitely makes a difference to be able to care for, observe, and learn from a living organism. It makes the notes that we take in class and the words in the Chance and Pryor books come alive.

One thing that I didn't like, and there isn't really a way to avoid this, is the limited amount of time that we had to put Rosie on an alternate partial schedule. We chose FI, but 3 days wasn't really enough to see a significantly different cumulative record. Also, the FI experience made me question whether Rosie was truly learning to change her habits of bar pressing or just pressing and pressing until a reinforcement was delivered. I didn't see Rosie stop pressing the bar or stop checking the food hopper during the time interval and then begin pressing right toward the end of the interval. I think we might have seen that had she had more time on FI. Perhaps future classes should only have the option to stay on FR through the month?

I suppose the most surprising thing was the very first day when Rosie was magazine trained and began the process of shaping so quickly.

Sniffy vs. Rosie

For me, training Sniffy (virtual) and training Rosie (live) were two very different experiences. While I feel that Sniffy was good preparation for Rosie, it was quite different. I would recommend that future classes use Sniffy before magazine training the live rats just so they feel more confident going into their first day in the lab (I know I felt more confident).

Some differences: It seemed like Sniffy took significantly longer to magazine train and shape than did Rosie - with Rosie, we were beginning to shape at the end of the first session on magazine training with Dr. Trench. Instead of the 30-minute magazine training and shaping with Rosie on that first day, magazine training Sniffy took me 21 minutes while shaping Sniffy took me 44 minutes. It was also frustrating that there wasn't a speed-up option for shaping Sniffy (I know that there can't be because the trainers intermittently have to manually reinforce Sniffy, but that was a long 44 minutes to sit through).

Looking back, I think I'm glad that Sniffy took longer to magazine train and shape than Rosie did - the program gave me greater patience going into the first training session with Rosie, so I was pleasantly surprised when it didn't take long at all with Rosie. However, had I known that the live rats would progress so quickly, I would've felt more prepared to move seamlessly into shaping (after she was magazine trained, I was hesitant about how to begin shaping). In this way, I was not prepared to follow one of Pryor's ten laws of shaping, which says that the trainer should always be prepared for the next step of the training process.

Overall, I'd say using Sniffy was a good experience. I also appreciated the bar graphs that charted Sniffy's Bar Sound, Sound Food, and Action Strength. That helped to demystify the shaping process for me and put it in more concrete terms. And I would absolutely suggest continuing to use live rats for future classes - it just isn't the same only seeing the process on a computer screen.

Average number of responses per reinforcement schedule

This graph shows the average number of bar presses that Rosie made during shaping, FR, FI, and extinction. *Note: We did not include the number of responses for FI5, as we accidentally did not record that data.

As we can see from the graph, Rosie consistently pressed the bar during FR, FI, and extinction, almost to equal extents. She had the highest average during FI.

The exact numbers are as follows:

Shaping	62 bar presses
FR	263 bar presses
FI	265 bar presses
Extinction	261 bar presses

Challenges

There were a couple of challenges during training - many probably due more to trainer error than to the fault of Rosie. We had trouble regulating Rosie's weight throughout training. Her initial weight was 180 grams, her target weight was 165 grams, and throughout training she was almost every possible weight in between. A post with the weight chart is to follow, but that difficulty could have affected Rosie's motivation, and thus her performance, on certain days (specifically the days toward the end of September when she was on the higher end of that weight spectrum). Monitoring her performance however, Rosie seemed to perform quite consistently and maintain motivation through the weeks. So perhaps those weight fluctuations didn't throw Rosie off as much as it did Brian and me.
In order to correct/manage this slight problem, we tried to just play it day by day. I think we could have fed her a little less than we did when her weight initially began to climb, but once we noticed that it wasn't stabilizing at any one point, we began to decrease the food that we gave Rosie in an effort to get her weight down a bit. At one point, we were feeding her 4-5 grams per day. We believe that the sugar/chocolate reinforcement pellets made her gain significant amounts of weight, but it was a challenge trying to keep her weight steady around one number.

Another challenge that Brian and I were initially concerned about was the fact that Rosie's box, box 1, did not always deliver a reinforcement when it was supposed to. In watching/studying the mechanism when it turned and when it was supposed to deliver a reinforcement, sometimes the pellets simply did not get picked up by the turning of the mechanism. Thus, reinforcements would be delivered every other time that they were supposed to be. We noticed this happening more and more by the first of October.
While we were concerned about it at first, we realized in watching Rosie's trainings that the malfunctioning reinforcement delivery did not affect her motivation - in fact, we believe that it actually made her more motivated to continue pressing the bar (similar to our class discussion of the role of partial reinforcement schedules in a rat's increased resistance to extinction). I believe that this extreme partial reinforcement schedule (reinforcements being delivered every other time on top of the already implemented partial schedules of FR2, 3, 5, 7, and 10, and FI5, 10, and 15) played a significant role in the consistently high number of responses made by Rosie during extinction.

Extinction day 2

Today was Rosie's last day of extinction! Today, Rosie exhibited many of the same behavior from yesterday's extinction day 1 session. Throughout the session, Rosie exhibited lots of jumping, rearing up all walls of the box, biting the bar and food hopper. Rosie still exhibited frantic/erratic/fast-paced behavior and general movements, but I also noticed that she spent more time than yesterday on other activities (such as grooming). Rosie engaged in the most jumping around the 22-minute mark. The following is a breakdown of the number of times that Rosie pressed the bar, represented in 5-minute intervals:

0-5 minutes = 60 bar presses
5-10 minutes = 31 bar presses
10-15 minutes = 29 bar presses
15-20 minutes = 21 bar presses
20-25 minutes = 55 bar presses
25-30 minutes = 7 bar presses
203 total bar presses

As we can see from this layout, there was a notable resurgence of bar pressing in the 5 minutes between 20 and 25 minutes.

Here is the cumulative record for today's extinction session:

It appears, from the cumulative record, that Rosie was quite resistant to extinction, an observation that her behaviors corroborate.

Extinction day 1

Today Brian and I put Rosie on the first day of extinction. It was hard to watch Rosie get so upset and continually press the bar in hopes of reinforcement. I'm not sure what I was expecting or how other rats behaved, but Rosie was certainly not happy about extinction. Some of the behavior that we noticed:
-more frantic and faster pressing of the bar
-more attempts to press the bar in different ways (pushing from below, pushing with head on the bar)
-biting the bar
-biting the edge of the food hopper
-faster/more erratic general movements around cage
-more jumping in box
-attempting to climb box walls
-climbing wall above the bar (with one foot on the bar) and hanging off of the little light bulb in box
-twisting herself upside down at the food hopper in an attempt to bite where the food usually comes out
-looking up/rearing up at the box's ceiling frequently
-increased sniffing of the floor
-sense of urgency (didn't stop hardly at all in the 30 minutes to groom herself)

Below is a video of Rosie's frantic bar pressing behavior and general erratic movements around the box:

Next is a video of Rosie jumping up in the cage, further evidence of her becoming increasingly frustrated as the session continued:

Below is a picture of the cumulative record for today, which shows a pretty steady response rate that decreases in frequency as the session continued:

The number of bar presses that Rosie did during the 30 minute session is as follows (in 5-minute intervals):
0-5 minutes = 82 bar presses
5-10 minutes = 51 bar presses
10-15 minutes = 81 bar presses
15-20 minutes = 28 bar presses
20-25 minutes = 40 bar presses
25-30 minutes = 36 bar presses
(Total = 318 bar presses)

I'm interested to see how she responds to extinction again tomorrow, since she exhibited such resistance today.

FI5, FI10, and FI15

Brian, Rosie, and I are well into our chosen alternate schedule of reinforcement (fixed interval) at this point. We've completed 3 days of the FI schedule (FI5, FI10, and then FI15 earlier today).  It's been an interesting experience to watch Rosie on this new schedule and compare/contrast her bar-pressing behavior on FI versus FR. Brian and I chose FI mostly because we thought it would be interesting to see the distinctive scallop pattern in the cumulative records. At this point, however, we have yet to see such a pattern emerge. This could be due to not having enough time to let Rosie really get used to this new schedule. Here are our cumulative records, in chronological order:

FI5 (Thursday, October 3)

Brian and I weren't quite sure what to make of this graph. This was Rosie's first day on FI, so I think we have to see this as an adjustment period, which the graph reflects: for the first approximately 17 minutes, the graph shows that Rosie seems to be attempting to earn reinforcements on this new schedule in the same manner that she did on FR. Rosie presses and presses the bar until a reinforcement appears. It suggests that Rosie thought she was receiving reinforcements for her persistence in pressing and her numerous pressing instead of for waiting 5 seconds. 

Another reason that the record does not look very similar to an FI record could be that 5 seconds is such a short amount of time to wait. In 5 seconds of continuous pressing, it was like Rosie was being reinforced on a ratio rather than interval schedule (5 seconds of pressing frequently equalled around 10 presses, which was the number of presses that she was used to during FR training).

However, we can begin to see hints of the scalloped pattern after the 18 minute mark.

She received 103 reinforcements on FI5, though we accidentally failed to record the exact number of bar presses for this training session.

FI10 (Friday, October 4)

Today's training session on FI10 was similar to the session before it on FI5. We still couldn't see much difference in Rosie's pressing behavior from FR to FI. She would press pretty steadily throughout the interval and then receive her reinforcement. Today made me wonder whether Rosie is actually learning that no reinforcements would be given during those 10-second intervals, or is she merely learning to be even more persistent in her bar pressing?
Regardless, she was still quite eager and motivated today: The session went for 30 minutes, she pressed the bar 252 times, and 82 reinforcements were delivered.

FI15 (Saturday October 5)

Today was again similar to the past 2 FI days. I'm starting to wonder if we'll get to see the scallop pattern at all before we begin extinction on Monday. Interestingly, there do not appear to be any hints of a scallop on this record, whereas there were on yesterday's record.

Nevertheless, I observed what looked like Rosie exhibiting more patience and a greater awareness of the interval restriction today than on either of the previous FI days. This observation can be seen in the video (below) from today's session:

Today's session lasted 30 minutes; she pressed the bar 277, and 84 reinforcements were delivered.

For tomorrow (our last day of FI), we hope to see some emergence of a scallop pattern!

FR10

Yesterday, Brian and I put Rosie on an FR10 schedule, to which she responded well. Our goal was to get Rosie responding steadily and consistently to the new schedule. We were concerned that since FR10 is a bit of a jump from the previous schedule, FR7, Rosie would get frustrated or distracted by the extra energy needed to obtain reinforcements. However, Rosie figured it out quite quickly that she needed to continue pressing the bar. Also, we were thinking that since box 1 has been acting up and not delivering reinforcements consistently for every response unit, Rosie has had to learn more persistence and resilience than would otherwise be needed had the box been working properly. It'll be interesting to see how this situation could lend itself to an increased resistance to extinction when we begin the extinction process.

Anyway, here is the cumulative record from today's session, which shows a steady response rate throughout the 30 minute session. Rosie pressed the bar 414 times, and 41 reinforcements were delivered. :

Another thing to note from the cumulative record - Rosie responded a little slower at the beginning of the session than at the end. We also noticed that she would respond rather steadily until around 7, 8, or 9 responses, and then she would often take a break and come back to the bar to finish the last few presses necessary for reinforcement. We were concerned at first that perhaps she was just pressing and checking haphazardly for reinforcement instead of consistently pressing the bar 10 times and then knowing that reinforcement would be delivered. These breaks can be seen in the cumulative record. However, when Rosie was committed to pressing and was motivated to work for the reinforcements (i.e., when nothing else was more reinforcing to her at that moment, such as sniffing the cage or grooming herself), she pressed confidently and relatively quickly.

Rosie's weight has also been of some concern to us throughout training. It's fluctuated quite a bit: Before training, she was around 180 grams; we then got her down to 165 grams before training began; however, near the end of September, she was back up around 180! We're now down to feeding her around 6 grams per day, and she is losing weight again. She is now around 174, and we are continuing to regulate that number closely. We were worried that could have had an effect on her motivation to work for reinforcements; however, it doesn't seem to have negatively impacted her performance, seeing as how she is progressing at a similar rate to many of the other rats whose trainers we have talked to in the class.

Below is a video of Rosie on FR10. In the video, we can see the (at times) erratic nature of her bar-pressing/checking for reinforcement. The video also shows box 1 malfunctioning and not delivering a reinforcement for every response unit completed:

FR5 and FR7

FR5

I didn't get to blog yesterday, but here's a recap: Yesterday, Brian and I put Rosie on an FR5 schedule, and she did fantastically! Yesterday was definitely one of her good days. The cumulative record is pictured below - the record shows a very steady response rate:

The session yesterday lasted the full 30 minutes, and Rosie pressed the bar 431 times. After this performance, we were very confident that Rosie was ready for FR7.

FR7

Today, we put Rosie on FR7, and she had a tougher time with it than she did with FR3. She seemed distracted today. The session went for the full 30 minutes, and she pressed the bar 383 times. She also took a very lengthy break around the 15 minute mark (a break that lasted almost 5 minutes). She did not press the bar frequently during that time, and it seemed like she was pressing in a rather random fashion. She would press once or twice, check the hopper, walk to the other side of the cage, rear up against the back wall, explore the glass front of the box, explore the light, try to climb the walls, groom herself, and then try the bar pressing once or twice again! I didn't capture the erratic/distracted nature of her wanderings in the box during those breaks, but the video below indicates her seemingly random/confused at times pressing of the bar:

Even so, we feel confident that she's ready for FR10: When she did press the bar purposefully, she was confident in responding to the sound of the hopper. She also quickly picked up the perseverance necessary to keep pressing the bar even when she learned that the previous ratio of 5 presses no longer sufficed.

One possibility for why Rosie seemed so distracted and uninterested in the treats today was that she just wasn't very motivated to work for them - Brian and I have noticed that Rosie has steadily gained weight throughout training. She is currently around 11 grams over her target weight (target weight = 165 grams). We've been feeding her around 6 grams for a couple of days now, hoping to get her weight down a little bit, so perhaps that is one explanation. Or the sugar in the pellets just hypes her up and distracts her - we've noticed that she definitely gets more and more erratic in her behavior as the sessions progress! Regardless, we should land right on the finish date for training.