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This article is for you if you are interested in going beyond the basics of Clicker Training. This is a follow up article to "Let's Do Some Click'n - An Introduction to Clicker Training". It is recommended that you first read that article before reading this article but it isn't required. Some of the topics covered in this article are Partial Reinforcement, Training Outside the Comfort Zone, Chaining, and Eliminating Unwanted Behaviors. This article briefly touches on some of the more technical terms used in Operant Conditioning and ends with some concluding remarks about looking closely into the ABC's of behaviors.
I've included two topic boxes that you'll see in this article which expand on the topics. The two topic boxes used in this article are Birdie Topic and People Topic. The Birdie Topic box gives additional specific information that relates directly to training your bird. This box may offer additional details relating to training or may answer a specific question about training your bird. The second topic box, People Topic, relates the step, process, or technique to human behavior. You can read this entire article or jump to a specific section using the links below.
One of the incorrect perceptions of Clicker Training is that "The Trainer must always C&T behaviors" which means the Trainer must always carry a Clicker and Treats. This isn't true and in fact the experience Trainer knows to change his method to Partial Reinforcement. This method is only used after a behavior is perfected and placed on cue. Partial Reinforcement is where a C&T isn't offered each time the behavior is cued and performed. It is a four step progression from C&T'ing for each behavior to the ultimate goal of C&T'ing at random times. Here are the four progressions.
Here's how to move toward Partial Reinforcement. Up to this point in Clicker Training, each time your bird was cued and offered the behavior, you C&T'd. The second step is to begin to use Partial Reinforcement where you C&T every other time. You will cue the behavior, your bird will offer the behavior and you will not C&T. You will then cue the behavior again, your bird will offer the behavior and this time you will C&T. This process will then be repeated and you will only C&T every other time. This is often referred to as "Fixed Ratio" clicking because for every 2 behaviors cued and offered only 1 C&T is given. Initially your bird will look at you like you're crazy after the first cue and behavior because it did the behavior but didn't get the C&T. It is acceptable to give verbal praise after the behavior while withholding the C&T. The next step in the process is to begin C&T'ing every third time. This is still "Fixed Ratio" but the ratio is now 3 behaviors cued and offered and still only 1 C&T given after the third behavior. While "Fixed Ratio" requires the bird to work harder and maintains its interest, it has one minor flaw. It is predictable. You bird will eventually figure out that it only gets a treat every other time or every third time depending on the "Fixed Ratio". To overcome this problem, the final step in the process changes to "Variable Ratio". This final step brings the best and most effective training results. It is important to mix it up so there isn't a pattern detected. This variability keeps your bird guessing, keeps them interested, and increases the effectiveness of the training. The fact that the reward is unpredictable is a very powerful phenomenon. There are some experts that use this theory to explain the strength of having an addiction to gambling. It's as if the anticipation of getting the reward is stronger than actually getting the reward. Observe your bird carefully as you move through the Partial Reinforcement process and watch for signs of confusion or a loss of interest. You may need to back up a step in the process if you detect these responses.
People Topic - We've all seen this behavior in people too. Like when little Billy's parent tells him to say or do something to show Grandma that he's a big boy and little Billy just freezes. The parent tries to explain it saying "He was just doing it in the other room!"
One of my favorite TV shows is Pet Star. If you haven't seen it, contestants bring their animals on the show to perform tricks with a chance to win money and prizes. Usually at least once per show, a contestant begins the trick and their pet just sits there looking at them like they're crazy. The trainer's response is usually "He did it fine before we came on stage" or a similar excuse. This is often a result of a failure to Train Outside the Comfort Zone. Some trainers refer to this as Generalization. Most trainers have a training area that is used for all training sessions. Their training area is free from distractions. Their animal becomes accustomed to training in that zone and they become very comfortable in that zone. But if you move them across the room, they seem to forget everything they learned. This is why it is important to also train outside their training area or outside their comfort zone.
This is very simple to accomplish. After a behavior is trained. Take your bird to another location and see if the behavior is still reliable. If it is still reliable then try another location. Gradually try more and more distracting locations and continue to test the behavior. If at any time, your bird's behavior doesn't meet your expectations then back up a few steps and retrain. You won't need to start from the very beginning but you may need to back up a few steps in the training process before your bird begins to perform again. The good news is that the time it takes to fine tune and polish the behavior at the new location will go much faster than the original training time.
Birdie Topic - Chaining behaviors should only be attempted after all the linked behaviors are perfected. If you proceed before perfection, your bird will think that the weak behavior is what you want in the chained behavior. It will require a lot of extra work and retraining to fix this weak link.
Chaining or Linking behaviors is the method used to train complex behaviors. Just as simple behaviors are broken down into smaller successive approximations, complex behaviors are built by using multiple simple behaviors. Let's look at a specific example like the "Slam Dunk". Your bird will go and pick up a prop basketball, take it to the prop basketball goal, and drop it in the basket. This can be trained by Chaining (or Linking) 3 simpler behaviors; "Fetch", "Targeting", and "Leave It". The "Fetch" behavior will be used to train your bird to go get the basketball. "Targeting" will be used to train your bird to take the ball to the goal. Finally, "Leave It" (or "Drop") will be used to train your bird to drop the basketball in the basket.
There are two possible methods for chaining multiple behaviors together. For example, a behavior may be a result of three different behaviors linked in the order of Behavior A + Behavior B + Behavior C. In our previous example of "Slam Dunk" the Behavior A is the "Fetch", Behavior B is the "Targeting", and Behavior C is the "Drop". One possibility is to begin C&T'ing (Behavior A). Then you will increase the criteria to (Behavior A + Behavior B) before C&T'ing. Finally you would increase the criteria to (Behavior A + Behavior B + Behavior C) before C&T'ing. This seems logical from the trainer's perspective but I don't recommend this method. The reason that I don't like this procedure is because at each step, the C&T'ing is done at a different point in the overall behavior and more importantly it is done before the entire behavior is offered. So until you link all the behaviors, you are C&T'ing at the wrong time. I also don't recommend this method because this may be confusing from your bird's perspective. After the first behavior, your bird will think that it has earned a treat and will hesitate waiting on its C&T that it has rightfully earned. This hesitation can be overcome but as soon as you get the first two behaviors Chained or Linked, you will introduce another hesitation between the second and third behaviors. The ultimate goal is linking the final behavior and it isn't until this point that the C&T comes at the correct time. Using this method of "Forward Chaining" is successfully used and recommended by some trainers. In my opinion, a better method is the "Reverse Chaining" method. Let's now take a look at "Reverse Chaining".
The "Reverse Chaining" method is the opposite of "Forward Chaining". Let's again assume that we want to chain three behaviors (Behavior A + Behavior B + Behavior C). Using this method you start at the end by C&T'ing Behavior C. So the C&T is done at the correct time and the ultimate goal ("Slam Dunk" from our previous example) is reached before the C&T. This immediately tells the bird that it must finish the behavior before getting a treat. The criteria is then increased by requiring (Behavior B + Behavior C). Again, the C&T is done at the conclusion of the final behavior; Behavior C. Again, the bird is rewarded for finishing the behavior. Finally, all three behaviors are linked (Behavior A + Behavior B + Behavior C) and again the C&T is done at the same point where it should be done.
Both the "Reverse Chaining" and "Forward Chaining" methods have been used successfully. It is partly a matter of preference. You may want to experiment with both methods before settling on a particular method.
How many of you jumped straight to this section? Raise your hands please. You are not alone. This seems to be a popular topic and I assure you that you will find your answers in this section for eliminating unwanted behaviors. We will cover two methods to eliminate behaviors. One is based on untraining and the other is based on training. But first let's look at exactly what an unwanted behavior is and where it comes from. The removal of an unwanted behavior must be a reasonable goal. For example, removing the behavior of "eating" is not a reasonable behavior to attempt to remove. Likewise, removing the behavior of "vocalizing" is also not a reasonable behavior to attempt to remove. Communicating is very important to birds. It is perfectly normal for birds to be vocal at dawn, dusk, and sometimes when isolated. These behaviors (eating and vocalizing) are hard-wired behaviors. Loud, screaming, squawking, and yelling behaviors can be modified and it is reasonable to want to modify these behaviors. This section will focus on excessive noise from birds but the principles in this section can also be used on other unwanted behaviors.
Before attempting to modify any behavior, you should attempt to find out what is causing the behavior. Let's look at the case of a screaming bird. If this were a child, your first step would be to ask, "What is wrong little Johnny?" Unfortunately birds can't understand English so it is up to you to try to understand what they are trying to tell you. Is there something in the bird's environment that is scaring the bird? Was a new toy introduced to the cage or was the cage recently moved? Was new furniture put in the room? Some birds are more sensitive than others and will be spooked by adding a new Crayon drawing to the refrigerator that's 10 feet away. So this part of the investigation may require some creativity on the your part. What do you do next after you've checked everything and found nothing? Another possibility to consider is a health problem. A check-up at the vet (an avian vet) is recommended at this point especially if this is a recently developed behavior. Birds respond to health problems in different ways depending on the bird, the species, and the particular health problem. It's always a good idea to rule out health problems before they worsen. What do you do after you've checked the environment and had a check-up at the vet and you still can't find anything? Now is the time to look at modifying the behavior. But first I have some "good news" and "bad news". The "bad news" is that the behavior is most likely being reinforced by you, someone else, or the previous owner. And most likely, the person reinforcing the behavior doesn't even know that they were/are reinforcing the bad behavior. However, the "good news" is that it can be fixed. So let's look at a couple methods for eliminating unwanted behaviors. The two methods that will be discussed in this article are "Extinction" and "Substitution".
People Topic - You're waiting on the elevator and it seems to take forever. Someone always seems to go to the button and push it over and over. This is an example of an "Extinction Burst". After pushing the button once the reward of the opening elevator doesn't happen. So the person pushes it over and over. We all know that pushing it over and over won't help but someone always does it "just in case".
Extinction is a method of eliminating unwanted behaviors based on untraining. There is a simple premise that most training (Clicker training in particular) is based on that says, "behaviors that are reinforced tend to increase in frequency, intensity, and duration." The flip side of this coin is that behaviors that are not reinforced eventually decrease in frequency, intensity, and duration. Let's look at a specific example. You're sitting in your favorite chair, your bird is 20 feet away from you and your bird lets out a loud screeching noise. You look at him and you can see that there is nothing in his environment that changed. You next response is to say, "What's the matter pretty bird?" (bad response) or you yell, "Shut up noisy bird!" (really bad response), or you get up to go see what his problem is (also a really bad response). Each of these responses give your bird exactly what it's probably looking for which is attention. By screeching he can at least get your attention (you look at him) or he may get lucky and get a verbal response or if he's really lucky he'll hit the Jackpot and you'll get up and go to his cage. All of these responses reward his behavior and reinforce his behavior. Both Positive attention ("What's the matter pretty bird?") and Negative attention ("Shut up noisy bird!") are rewarding responses to the bird looking for attention. So the "good news" is that you are an effective trainer already, the "bad news" is that you are training an unwanted behavior. This is very easy to fix though so don't get discouraged. Let's look at our first method of eliminating unwanted behaviors, which is "Extinction".
Extinction can be used to eliminate this screaming behavior by simply ignoring the behavior. It is that simple. When you hear the screech, don't look at the bird, don't speak to the bird, and don't get up to go to the bird. Your response should be absolutely no response at all. So what will the bird do as soon as it realizes that you are not going to respond? It will most likely repeat the behavior. You must be disciplined and stick with it because it will get worse before it gets better. You can expect an "Extinction Burst" which is where the behavior is repeated over and over. Your bird thinks that maybe you didn't hear it so it will do it again. Then it thinks that maybe it wasn't loud enough so it will do it louder. Eventually your bird will learn that it isn't going to get a reward and it will stop the behavior assuming that you stick with it and focus on not reacting to the screeching. This is the most difficult part. You may find that you are reacting before you even think about it as a learned behavior on your part. So it may require some unlearning on your part too. You must ignore the behavior all the time. Don't give in occasionally just to "shut him up". And just in case you were thinking about it, if you say "I'm ignoring you" to your bird then it doesn't count as ignoring the behavior. The worse thing that you can do is reward the behavior some of the time and ignore it other times. This is referred to as "Variable Ratio Partial Reinforcement" which is a very effective reward method that was covered earlier in this article. One other point before moving on to the next section is that you may also experience a "Spontaneous Recovery". This is when the behavior goes away for a period of time then just seems to pop back up out of thin air. This happens occasionally but if you continue to ignore the behavior it will become extinct much quicker this time.
People Topic - An application of this in the "people world" is to substitute the behavior of "interrupting the parent while on the phone" with "waiting quietly for the phone call to end". The parent ignores the child while on the phone but rewards the child if it waits patiently until the phone conversation is over.
Substitution is another method used to eliminate unwanted behaviors. Technically it is referred to as (DRA) or Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behaviors. That seems like a mouthful so I'll use the term "Substitution". Besides, we don't want to make this method sound more difficult than it really is. Substitution is a method that substitutes acceptable behaviors for unwanted behaviors. The acceptable behaviors are rewarded and the unwanted behaviors are ignored. This is very similar to Extinction with the addition of a reward on the other end of the equation. Some behaviors can not be eliminated using Extinction because the bird gets it's own reward from doing the behavior. So eliminating the reward by ignoring it is not an option. This is called a Self-Rewarding or a Self-Reinforcing behavior. An example of this is a bird that throws its food out of the cage or in the bottom of the cage instead of eating it. The reward is the noise that the food makes as it hits the floor or cage. This should not be confused with the bird accidentally dropping food, which is a natural behavior for birds. In this case we're talking about intentionally throwing food around. Since this is a self-rewarding behavior, "Extinction" and ignoring the behavior won't work. However, Substitution will work. You substitute the behavior of "eating the food" for the behavior of "throwing the food". The perfect behavior to substitute is one that makes the unwanted behavior impossible to do. In this case, your bird can't throw the food and eat it at the same time. Rewarding the bird when it eats its food with a C&T while ignoring it if it throws the food is an application of Substitution. Also note that birds also use this method of throwing food to attract attention. If this is the case then the method of "Extinction" can be used to eliminate this behavior.
A common use of Substitution is substituting one unpleasant "noise" for another more pleasant "noise". If you notice that your bird screams when you leave the room, this is a common behavior for birds. This is called a Contact Call and it is how birds communicate. To be more specific, the calling to you (Contact Call) is common but the screaming is not common. This is how a bird communicates with the rest of its flock. This Contact Call is an effort to determine where you are and if everything is ok. This is an excellent opportunity for Substitution. When you leave the room and the bird screams, you simply don't respond in any manner. As soon as the bird makes an acceptable noise then you reward the bird by echoing the acceptable noise or by using another acceptable noise. You may also C&T this acceptable noise that the bird offers or your response may be reward enough. Your bird will quickly realize that you will only respond if it uses the proper (pleasant) Contact Call. Your life and the bird's life will be much easier if a kissing noise is used as a Contact Call instead of a screaming noise. You'll also notice that once a Contact Call and return Contact Call are established, your bird will do it a couple times when you leave the room and will often stop once it recognizes where you are and that everything is ok.
In this section we'll go over a few definitions and cover some information that isn't necessary to be successful at Clicker Training. In fact, by this point, you already know more than you need to know. This section is for those of you that just can't get enough and love to learn all the details.
As you already know, Clicker training is based on Operant Conditioning (OC). OC is the theory that the consequences of a behavior determine if the behavior will continue or happen again. You also know at this point or at least have been told that Clicker training uses only Positive Reinforcement. That's not exactly true and this will be clear at the end of this section. There are two basic consequences of a behavior (Reinforcement and Punishment). Before you run off to punish your bird, let's look a little closer at the details and definitions of Reinforcement and Punishment.
Let's look at simple examples of each of these as they relate to a bird. The first type of Reinforcement (+R) is the foundation of Clicker training. The bird will work to obtain the pleasant event of the C&T. An example of Negative Reinforcement (-R) is the classic "Say Uncle". For those of you without an older brother, "Say Uncle" is when someone twists your arm until you say "Uncle" before letting go of your arm. So in this case, the (-R Twisting the Arm) is applied until the desired behavior (saying "Uncle") is performed.
APPLYING ANY UNPLEASANT EVENT TO YOUR BIRD IS NOT RECOMMENDED, WILL NOT FIX THE PROBLEM, AND WILL LEAD TO BIGGER PROBLEMS.
An example of Positive Punishment (+P) would be to spray the bird with water every time it screams.
THIS ALSO IS NOT RECOMMENDED, WILL NOT FIX THE BEHAVIOR, AND WILL LEAD TO BIGGER PROBLEMS.
Finally, an example of Negative Punishment (-P) is when you ignore your bird while it is making a particular noise. In this case, you are removing something pleasant (your attention) after the undesired behavior (screaming). You may be thinking "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" because if that is the case then "Punishment" is acceptable! Before you run off to "Punish" your bird please make sure that you understand this point.
Only Negative Punishment is acceptable and it is only acceptable in rare cases. It should only be used as a last resort.
If you are creative, there are usually ways to use Positive Reinforcement instead of Negative Punishment, which is the recommended method of training animals. Before we move on to the next topic, are we clear on this point? We use Positive Reinforcement (+R) 99% of the time, we use Negative Punishment (-P) 1% of the time, and we never use Negative Reinforcement (-R) or Positive Punishment (+P).
One final point to cover is the subject of the "ABC's of Behavior". It is often important to analyze something with a magnifying glass and this is a great tool to help you analyze a behavior before attempting to eliminate a behavior or before attempting to train a new behavior. In this case, the "ABC's" stand for;
The Antecedent (A) is anything in the bird's environment that evokes or facilitates a behavior. We discussed several possible Antecedents earlier in this article when covering the methods for unwanted behaviors. Most of the effort in Clicker training is focused on the Consequence (C) (often a C&T) to influence the Behavior (B). The other end of the equation is sometimes important and usually more important when trying to eliminate a behavior. We covered most of this information in the section Eliminating Unwanted Behaviors. It is recommended that each of these three areas be explored before attempting to eliminate an unwanted behavior. You will find that focusing on the Antecedent will eliminate a lot of unwanted behaviors. By modifying the Antecedent, the behavior will often fix itself or at least make it easier to modify or eliminate the Behavior.
I hope you've enjoyed this information and more importantly I hope that you take some useful information and apply it to your training. You will discover that this method works and is a joy to apply. Both the Trainer enjoys the training sessions and if done properly then the bird also enjoys the training session.
This article may be republished to any media source including webpages, news papers or any other print medium in its unaltered entirety as long as the byline below is included.
This article was originally published on www.InfoSuperFlyway.com. The InfoSuperFlyway website is dedicated to Kibibi the talking African Grey Parrot (Congo African Grey) with sights, sounds, audio, videos, articles, top ten lists, parrot jokes, parrot humor, and Clicker training info! Original Article Source: Clicker Training II (Intermediate Clicker Training)
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