Written By Chris Andrew Biro, Copyright 2000, all rights reserved.
Welcome to the wonderful and exciting world of training parrots. In this material it will be the goal to not only show you how to train fun “parlor ticks” but also how to use these same training philosophies to improve overall behavior. It is the author’s position that training is more than just useful for improving our enjoyment of the animals in our care, but that training is also a responsibility that we as the “owners” take on when we accept an animal into our lives. Animals were not designed by nature to live within our artificial environments, nor did they in any way choose to do so, thus it is we who are purely responsible for their success or failure in our cohabitation. Our skills and willingness to appropriately train them are the primary ingredients that will determine if their stay in our care will be a success or a failure, enjoyable or fearful.
Training is about taking control of this responsibility. Training that lacks the element of responsibility will lack substance and will doom the animal to an inferior quality of life. The following poem helps emphasize this point.
Do I Go Home Today?
My family brought me home cradled in their arms.
They cuddled me and smiled at me and said I as full of
charm.
They played with me and laughed with me and showered me
with toys.
I sure do love my family, especially the girls and boys.
The children loved to feed me, they gave me special
treats.
They even let me sleep with them - all snuggled in the
sheets.
I used to go for walks, often several times a day.
They even fought to hold the leash, I'm very proud to
say.
These are the things I'll not forget - a cherished
memory.
I now live in the shelter-without my family.
They used to laugh and praise me when I played with that
old shoe.
But I didn't know the difference between the old ones
and the new.
The kids and I would grab a rag, for hours we would tug.
So I thought I did the right thing when I chew the
bedroom rug.
They said that I was out of control, and would have to
live outside.
This I did not understand, although I tried and tried.
The walks stopped, one by one; they said they hadn't
time.
I wish that I could change things; I wish I knew my
crime.
My life became so lonely, in the backyard, on a chain.
I barked and barked all day long to keep from going
insane.
So they brought me to the shelter but were embarrassed
to say why,
They said I caused an allergy, and then they each kissed
me goodbye.
If I'd only had some classes, as a little pup.
I wouldn't have been so hard to handle when I was all
grown up.
"You only have one day left." I heard the
worker say.
Does that mean I have a second chance? Do I go Home
today?
By Sandi Thompson
Often people think of training as being only corrective in nature, like when the dog is put onto a leash to keep it from running away or to teach it to heal - an undesirable behavior was “corrected” by the application of the leash when the animal does it “wrong”. Though this form of corrective based training is predominant in our society, it has scientifically been proven that there are more effective methods of training, methods that are more pleasant to both trainer and trainee, that rely mostly on focusing on what the animal is doing “right” instead of “wrong”. Some sixty years ago, B.F. Skinner began developing what today is known as Operant Conditioning (scientific version). Though Operant Conditioning is alive and well in the scientific community, animal trainers have begun referring to their particular version of OC as Clicker Training (popular training oriented “slang” version of OC).
Since we are viewing this body of scientific research from the trainer’s stand point, we will here focus on some of the “how we best learn” and “how we best communicate” aspects but will be simplifying this complex information for use in the training environment – obviously much of the strict scientific methodology and terminology used in the laboratory is of little use, or would be even confusing, for the average person working in the living room training “Paulie” to squawk a little less loudly.
Dolphin trainers were of the first animal trainers to begin the process of simplifying and applying the principles of the very scientific Operant Conditioning research. Dolphins are animals that can just swim away, like flighted parrots just fly away, to avoid any unpleasantness, thus traditional fear based training methods are especially ineffective with these animals. Today this popular animal training version of OC has been termed Clicker Training. Again though, it is the authors feeling that some of the terminology used even in explaining clicker training is confusing or prejudicial and thus distracting from the most central concepts. With this material, the author attempts to further simplify and clarify the concepts involved in effectively training parrots and other animals.
It should also be understood by the reader that these training principles here presented encompass much more than training parlor tricks, but are effective methods of achieving behavior modification as well. These same principles used to train tricks can work miracles in improving or eliminating troublesome behavioral problems. In fact, the author, who frequently takes in “castaway” parrots, uses these principles for behavior modification far more often than for trick training.
Most training in our society (in the family, school, sports, church, law, etc.) is focused on training techniques built around what the animal or child is doing “wrong” and mostly involves the use of aversion and fear. Though there are plenty of examples of the limited effectiveness of Aversion Training, there is also a great deal of evidence to show us how to vastly improve the effectiveness of our training efforts by avoiding these same methods and their limitations. This material is intended to help you understand these limitations and show you methods of training that completely circumvent these fear based training methods and limitations.
Some people choose to completely ignore, avoid, or even condemn any form of aversives in training. This is impractical, simply because the average person is so heavily ingrained with Aversion training methods that this will often be the default method of training, even by people attempting to learn other methods. For this reason it is especially important to understand what the limitations are of such training methods. Through such discussions, at best people will learn how to focus on what the animal is doing “right” and thus avoiding the use of fear entirely and at worst, people who still insist on using Aversion training methods, will learn how to train with the least amount of damage to the animal and to the trainer/trainee relationship.
To effectively train your parrot to perform any given task or to improve any behavior, it will be most helpful for you to understand the basic factors involved with the “training” process. Training could be defined as: The intentional, calculated, and systematic learning of a given task or subject. Thus how a trainee best learns should affect the way we choose to train. Lets take a moment to look at learning in general.
The mind’s ability to learn is what allows intelligent creatures, like humans and parrots, to respond to repeatedly encountered stimulus without the need to continuously reevaluate anew the same material each and every time that same set of circumstances is met. This means humans, like parrots, are capable of remembering how we reacted the last time we encountered similar stimulus and what was the effect of that reaction. Thus we generalize much of our current behavior based upon our past experiences.
As a rule we unconsciously classify each of the individual elements of our experiences into one of three different categories: 1) Circumstances to be avoided, aversives. 2) Circumstances to be sought after or pursued. 3) Circumstances to be unnoticed or ignored. Our response to primary stimulus is instinctively classified into one of the first two of these three groups while secondary stimulus is classified by association with primary stimulus or learned through first hand personal experiences. The level of influential potency of the classification, or its intensity, is strengthened by repeated personal exposure.
In nature, the Aversive Category is the smallest group and is mostly fear based, and includes stimulus such as physical threats such as pain, annoying smells, etc. – the skunk relies heavily on such a reaction from potential predators. Aversive stimulus has the strongest immediate effect on the animal of the three classes, but has limited effects on future behavior, from a training standpoint. The Pursue It Category is a much larger group of stimulus than the Aversive Category and is mostly comprised of stimulus that the animal finds to be pleasurable in some way, such as a favorite food, sex partner, etc.. The Ignore It Category is the largest group, has the weakest effect on behavior, and is that vast group of details in the daily routine that do not fit into either of the first two groups, such as the moss growing on the rocks in the bottom of the river – though this moss may be a very important contributor to the quality of the water we drink, it is rarely part of the factors we consider in any of our daily activities.
In training, EVERYTHING comes down to how Stimulus, Response, and Reinforcement are being applied to the training environment. By definition, Reinforcement is anything that causes a behavior to be more likely to reoccur. Any stimulus that is to be avoided is an Aversive. Notice how the “Circumstances to be pursued” category correlates with this definition of Reinforcement – for this reason this group of stimulus will hereafter be referred to as the Reinforcement category. It is interesting to note how strongly our society is focused on the Avoidance category, to the point that our language even fails to include a rightly matching word for the opposite – there is no ready word for the “anti-avoidance” or “Pursue It” category.
As mentioned above, there are two classes of Reinforcements as well as two types of Aversives, instinctual and learned. A primary Reinforcement is instinctively desirable – such as food or sex partner. A secondary Reinforcement is a learned association with a primary Reinforcement – the cat may learn that the delivery of instinctively desirable food is often pointed to by the “desirable” sound of the electric can-opener opening the can of cat food. Thus the sound of the can-opener may become a secondary reinforcement.
Ok, back to understanding the Stimulus, Response, and Reinforcement issue. An example may here be helpful. Every day millions of people buy a Lottery ticket from the State, and in the end get very little in return (where VERY little approaches “nothing”). Were these people pushed or forced to buy their ticket? Not at all. These people willingly spend their money on a Lottery ticket because they want to. Why do they want to? Because they have been given information that they have evaluated to mean that there is a chance (admittedly slim) that they could become wealthy (and quit their jobs) if they take the action of purchasing a Lottery ticket. A Lottery ticket is purchased and (as expected) somebody else wins. Then each person evaluates what just happened and thus learns something that will be applied the next time similar stimulus is encountered.
So why do some people keep buying additional tickets? For the same reason they bought the first: their reaction to the stimulus is categorized or generalized as category number two, stimulus to be pursued – somebody won, it might be me next time. Other people see it differently and do not purchase another ticket – generalizing the stimulus as something to be avoided: I lost money and likely will only loose money again. Even though they each lost money and they still have the same “promise” of potential future winnings, they each have different reactions to the previous outcome.
In the Lottery example, for the first time ticket, the Stimulus is the initial information about the Lottery system, the Response is the purchase of the Lottery ticket, and the Reinforcement is the promise that there is a chance to win. For some people their initial response (purchase) was not reinforced since to them the “actual” loss outweighs the promised “potential” and thus they avoid repeating the behavior – developing an aversion to loosing money that is stronger than the desire for the “potential” future winnings. Remember, stimulus that is Reinforced causes a behavior to be more likely to reoccur and aversive stimulus is to be avoided. Thus for some people, the Lottery is an aversive, offering little or no reinforcement. Notice how both categories of Reinforcement and Aversion can simultaneously be involved to varying degrees – this can cause what appears as unpredictable future results – mainly because we, the observer and trainer, have no way of knowing which of the two the trainee finds to be the stronger or more intense of the two primary classes under a given set of circumstances.
Some people misunderstand the power and effects of Aversive stimulus, thinking that since such stimulus has the strongest effect on the animal, it must be the most effective for training. This is not true. The problem comes in the manner stimulus is applied, evaluated, and classified. In each daily situation, multiple stimuli will be present for classification. It is the hope of the Aversion Trainer that the aversives, applied as punishment, will carry over enough fear to cause the original behavior to also be classified as Aversive, and thus hoping the original behavior will be less likely to reoccur in the future. This rarely happens. Some behaviors are already strongly established as belonging to the class of “Things to Pursue” or by their very nature are self-reinforcing – like sex is great no matter who tells you it is “bad”. With some primal or instinctive behavior, such as relating to certain foods, sex drive, social vocalizations, etc., this classification is virtually impossible to be reclassified as anything but “Things to Pursue”. When faced with such apposing stimuli classifications, the animal is faced with determining how to live with both classifications – pursue more of the original behavior while avoiding the aversives (punishment). Often, this is most easily accomplished by avoiding the punisher or maybe at least avoiding the original behavior while the punisher is present (doing the original behavior when punisher is not present). It becomes obvious that training through reliance on aversives is complicated, unpleasant to the animal (and Trainer) and produces poor results.
Aversion Training methods have a couple primary problems: 1) Aversives are easily abused, especially when the Trainer gets frustrated or angry. 2) Generally, applying aversives results in unpredictable future behavior – thus does not reliably eliminate undesirable behavior. Asking the animal to trust you while at the same time being the source of inflicted aversives seeks to draw from both of the two primary classes of stimulus. Though people throughout history have worked with these limitations, it is not necessary or efficient to do so. Reinforcement Training offers very predictable future behavior and is difficult to apply in an abusive manner – have you ever felt abused by receiving desirable gifts for good behavior?
To begin to understand how to train in a more effective manner, a closer look at “learning” is needed.
Parrots are learning every minute of every day, just as you are. You both are 1) constantly receiving and evaluating information, 2) acting upon your evaluation - even if the action is to take “no action”, and 3) evaluating the result of your action. The next time you encounter similar stimulus, the result of your previous action will play heavily on your next choice for the next action. In training a parrot to perform a given behavior, the Trainer starts by choosing a desired end result (from the Trainer’s perspective) and then begins supplying information to the bird, i.e. the bird performs a behavior in response to the provided stimulus, and the Trainer completes the experience by doing something in return. The bird now evaluates if the elements of the situation are to be classified as something to avoid, something to pursue, or something to ignore. How the Trainer responds to the bird’s behavior will determine if the bird wants to avoid everything involved with that outcome (maybe including the Trainer), wishes to do more training, or gets bored and focuses on something else.
Since the trainer has no way of actually knowing how the animal categorizes each element of a situation, the trainer must work with what is observable – for example the animal really seems to like a particular food. From this the trainer can apply “Things To Pursue” reinforcement for a particular behavior by offering a response with that known “reaction”, i.e. offering the favorite food item. For this to work it is important that the trainer respond in a manner that the bird can recognize that the reinforcement is connected to its original action -this issue will later be discussed in more detail.
As you can see, how the trainer reacts to the animal’s behavior communicates information, and effects motivation. These two factors of training must be carefully weighed, with the goal of reaching proper balance. The combination of these two factors will result in four learning phases observable in the trainee: 1) the un-able and un-willing, 2) the un-able and willing, 3) the able and un-willing, 4) the able and willing. In the first phase the bird has no motivation and does not know how to do what you desire. In the second, the bird has the motivation but lacks the “know how”. With the third, the bird lacks the motivation to do what it has learned how to do. And the fourth, is when the bird desires to do what it has learned how to do.
Understanding which phase of training the bird is currently in, will help the Trainer know which of the two above factors needs the most emphasis - motivation or communication. Whether the Trainer will start out with the first phase and sequentially work to the last will depend on the bird and its previous training. A bird that is experienced in this “training game” and who has learned through previous experience that it can effect its environment through its own behavior, is usually more motivated to search for new behavior that also effects its environment – thus generalizing the “training process” itself as being in the “To be Pursued Category”.
There are several factors that determine how long your bird will stay in a particular phase but motivation is the real key. Without high motivation the offered training stimulus will be grouped into the “To be Ignored” class and the bird will do little learning and thus make little progress. The Aversion category of stimulus has the strongest effect on the animal because life-threatening circumstances naturally are cause for high motivation levels – “pay attention to this to stay alive, ignore this and die” type situations tend to strongly focus one’s attention, though can easily slip into a mental state of panic.
The bird’s level of motivation is greatly affected by what method of communication is being used. What the Trainer chooses to communicate is not nearly as important as how the communicating is done. By now you should already be getting the idea that we most effectively communicate using one of two forms of stimulus: “Reinforcement/Pursue It” or “Aversives/Avoid It”. Some people like to refer to these as Rewards and Punishments[1]. For clarity, we will use the terms Reinforcement and Aversives.
As we have already discussed, all stimulus will be classified into one of three categories. Maintaining proper balance is very important to achieving high motivation levels. To achieve proper balance the Trainer needs a standard to work from. The following example helps demonstrate the proper balance. For ease of demonstrating how balance effects motivation, these three factors are here offered in a “visual form”.
Think of training as a large coin. We are all familiar with the two primary sides of a coin but often forget about the third side. Yes, there are really three sides to a coin. The “heads” side we shall call the “Governors side” – behavior the trainer wishes to influence or change. The “tails” side we shall call the “Liberty side” – behavior the trainer is not concerned with. And the thin edge we shall call the “Thin Line side” – behavior that the trainer absolutely cannot allow. The surface areas of the two primary sides are very large by comparison to the surface area of the thin edge. We are here mostly interested in the amount of “surface area” of this hypothetical training coin. This surface area relationship will here be defined by the amount of time the animal experiences a particular class of stimulus.
The properly balanced Training Coin should have the Governors side of the coin being dominated by “Reinforcement/Pursue It” stimulus, the Liberty side by “Ignore It” stimulus, and the Thin Line side by “Aversive/Avoid It” stimulus. In this manner, the trainer can easily apply far more reinforcing “atta boy” time than aversive “ah shoot” time, resulting in the ability to generate very high motivation and interest in continuing with training. It is very important that the Thin Line side be kept as thin as is possible, the “thinner” the better. This means that the more time the animal spends being reinforced for a behavior the better. And the less aversive time is associated with that same behavior, the better yet.
Unfortunately, most of today’s training is done in fear based Aversion training, where the Governors side of our “Training Coin” is dominated by the “Aversion/Avoidance” stimulus, the Liberty side by the “Ignore It” stimulus, and only a small amount of time is devoted to the “Reinforcement/Pursue It” stimulus. This most likely will result in the animal wishing to avoid further training and likely wishing to avoid the trainer also.
To help understand why the author’s choice of what is the “proper balance” lets look at what is inherently limiting about Aversion Training. A popular Army saying may help, “One ah shoot, wipes out a hundred “that-a-boys.” (Slightly modified for public reading). To restate, one “screw up” wipes out a hundred or more jobs praised as “well done”. Think about how this works at the office. You make one tiny mistake and everyone forgets all about all the things you did right the entire rest of the month! As you can see, The “Aversive Category” of stimulus is VERY influential and is best only used by the trainer on rare special occasions.
Lets take a moment to look at how this all works in nature. Parrots in the wild spend most of their time doing things they enjoy (they don’t have a nine to five job or property taxes to worry about). Thus they are adding things to the “Reinforcement” /Governor’s side of the coin with most of their every day activities. Also on a daily basis are large amounts of stimulus that are observed but not critical to their daily choices, thus adding even more stimulus to the “Ignore It”/Liberty side of the coin. On fairly rare occasions by comparison, something comes along that fits into the “Aversive”/Thin Line side of the coin. Thus nature has given parrots the ability to deal with, a relative small amount of threatening and unpleasant stimulus, without experiencing adverse psychological fallout – mental problems. This is why we see evidence of the “successes” of traditional fear based training. In some situations we do give the animal enough reinforcement time to keep the animal functional and not hating us. But rarely do fear based trainers offer the animal enough reinforcement to adequately compensate for the amount of fear instilled in the animal due to these aversive-training techniques. Thus we so often see animals that cower or are slow to respond due to a state of constant fear and/or low motivation. Reinforcement Training is a more effective and more compassionate method of training animals (and humans) that totally avoids this very limiting build up of fear.
This does not mean that aversives do not have a place in the trainer’s “toolbox”. So what qualifies as “special circumstances”? Remember that Aversive stimulus offers the strongest singular immediate motivational effect. There are many emergency like circumstances that come up where future behavior is not as important in the moment as is the immediate behavior – the dog is standing in the middle of the road facing on-coming traffic. Throwing a rock at the dog is really not an acceptable or effective training method in the long-term goal of teaching the dog to stay out of the road. Chances are the dog will continue to go into the road, except maybe when you are standing there with a rock in your hand. However, throwing a rock at the dog while it is there standing in the road with the intent to get the dog to move out of the road is likely an appropriate[2] effective method of saving the dogs life. This is a case were time is not available to continue with the slower, though more effective in the long term, methods focused on the “Reinforcement” class of stimulus. There is still the chance that the dog will recognize you as the real threat (thrower of rocks) and become less trustful of you – later this loss of trust can be regained by repeated reinforcement of other behavior. Once the dog is out of danger, then the “Reinforcement” methods should be applied - maybe with the help of a leash until the training is completed.
Similarly, the average pet owner heavily controls all aspects of the caged animals very limited life, thus reducing the Liberty side of the coin to almost none existent, frequently resulting in low motivation and/or even serious mental problems. Nearly as important as applying frequent reinforcements to the bird, is spending time within the bird’s area of view where the trainer is only present, without any controlling efforts at all. Sitting and reading a book within eyesight of the bird is very balancing.
Our training coin thus is a good representation of how we, the trainer should best react to the birds behavior: When we need to Govern the birds behavior (train the bird) we should focus on using mostly Reinforcement time, we should limit our use of aversives only to immediately terminate an imperative behavior while it is actually happening (but with no intent to effect future behavior), and finally, we should allow the bird as much Liberty as is possible in the remaining areas that do not fit into the first two groups – over-regulation and control kills the individual spirit.
A this point you might be thinking, “But how can a bird be trained to not do “bad” behavior without punishment?” In theory the answer is simple: through better communication, high motivation, and a little creative thinking. In application, practice will make all the difference – with increased experience will come faster and easier results. The single most obvious difference is that the focus of the training is on what the animal is doing right or better instead of what the animal is doing “wrong”.
The bird will appreciate this form of training much more than fear-based training and will try much harder to figure out what is being taught. Some undesirable behaviors will continue to be tough (not impossible) but many will just vanish. With Reinforcement training, the bird will also be more likely to experience anticipation and joy when the trainer comes near rather than fear or anxiety, as is often the case to some degree with aversive-based training. How motivated would you be to play a game if every time you made a poor move, someone would jerk you by the neck, especially if the rules were not clear in the first place?
“Bad” behavior can often be reduced or removed by carefully examining the situation and identifying what is actually being reinforced and/or what is the reinforcement. Though stopping the behavior during its performance is often very important, focusing on what is reinforcing the undesirable behavior is the main key to the permanent fix. The trainer can either take away the reinforcement (sometimes not possible) or offer a new more effective way to get the same reinforcement, or offer a better reinforcement (if one can be found) for an incompatible or at least replacement behavior. In this way the trainer can often establish a new behavior for the animal to engage in to achieve its desired reinforcement and thus reduce or eliminate the previous undesirable behavior.
By way of example, I have stopped birds from screaming to get attention by offering them attention when they bobbed their head or raised their crest and did a little dance – notice I do not use any verbal behavior for this that could later itself become annoying. One Umbrella Cockatoo was driving us nuts with her screaming for attention until I started offering her a few moments of attention every time I saw her do her little “fluff attack dance”. Within two days of starting this practice, she stopped screaming for attention and began having frequent “fluff attacks” – which I of course had to honor the new rules more often so she got what she wanted and I got what I wanted. To this day, several years later and with her living in an outdoor cage now, she has not reverted to screaming for attention and she still does fluff attacks for attention.
Sometimes it is possible to replace the undesirable behavior with a desirable behavior, an incompatible behavior – meaning the bird cannot do these two things at the same time - or by changing the way the bird perceives the conditions surrounding its own responses.
Now that we have had a chance to look at the motivation side of training lets look at the communication side of training.
Notice that so far in this material we have focused on the effects of the information to establish a standard by which to measure the effectiveness of a given training process. We will continue to focus on the effects of the information to now establish a standard by which to measure the effectiveness of our communication process.
Since animals and humans do not speak the same languages, communication involves concepts other than words arranged in sentences. To attempt to communicate with an animal through such spoken dialog, will only result in very little information being communicated – most of what is said will be classed into the “Ignore It” class of stimulus.
“But wait,” you say, “my dog and my parrot both understand what ‘No’ means.” It may be more correct to say the dog and the parrot both have learned from their past experience with you that when you say “No!” or when you say any word in a certain tone of voice (frequently used when saying the word “no”) that you have gone into “predator mode” and are presently to be considered dangerous (again) – so they stop what they are doing and go into “lookout mode” to be prepared for what ever evil you are likely to soon inflict on them. Does this mean that they stopped the behavior because they “understood” what you meant? Depends on if this is truly what you meant - probably not. The animal does likely understand a meaning; just not likely the same meaning you have for the word. The author has a Scarlet Macaw that perfectly understands that “I love” means “Give me that!” (Pretty close to what we mean). This is his favorite begging phrase and will frequently say “I love you” to the author or to other birds as part of his effort to get part of a goody they posses.
The point here is that though spoken words may take on meaning to the animal, speaking words to the animal is not a very precise or effective method of communication. This may seem obvious to some readers, but it would probably surprise most readers how many people expect the spoken word to serve as the primary method of communicating with their animals. Many people even resist using other methods of communication with their pets. Having said this, lets now look at ways to build a better method of communicating with our animals.
Since animals likely do not understand our spoken words with the same meaning we do, animals will best learn from “doing” rather than being verbally “told”. Thus the Trainer will make the most progress in the least amount of time by getting the animal to do things and then offering stimulus the animal can classify – avoid more of this, pursue more of this, but hopefully not ignore this. As we have already seen, it is best for motivation purposes to focus on the behavior you want to encourage more of, while using very few aversive and lots of reinforcement.
So how does the Trainer get the animal to do the “right” things to be reinforced? Sometimes by starting with a behavior that the animal is already doing, called capturing. Sometimes by physically assisting the animal through the action desired. Sometimes through demonstrating, or modeling, the action desired – like speaking a word to be repeated. Most often though, by initially accepting any induced behavior that can later be modified into the end goal behavior. This process is called shaping or successive approximation – training toward an end result through tiny incremental steps.
Natural variance will cause all behavior to fluctuate; meaning each time the animal does a behavior it will be slightly different. Some times the behavior will be closer to the Trainers end goal and other times it will be farther from the goal. By selectively reinforcing only the preferred behavior (closest to the end goal), it is possible to mold or shape the initial behavior into the end goal. Being able to precisely identify the exact behavior being reinforced becomes critical.
To identify an exact behavior for reinforcement, two main issues will be considered. 1) Your ability to correctly apply a clear event marker, and 2) Your ability to quickly achieve delivery of the reinforcement before the animal’s attention is drawn elsewhere – thus inadvertently reinforcing the wrong behavior.
It should be fairly self evident that precise timing is required to clearly identify the precise behavior. Timing can also be important in the delivery of the reinforcement – if too much time elapses between the desired behavior and the delivery, the animal looses the connection as its thoughts move to other things. If the same event marker can link the two issues, then the timing of the delivery will not be so critical. This is called bridging. Bridging is where a single event marker identifies for the animal that some specific behavior has been performed (that is to be reinforced) and that the reinforcement is on its way, but may take a few moments to be delivered. In this way the bridging signal serves as a form of “contract” between the trainer and the trainee.
The bridging event marker may be anything that can serve as an easily recognized signal. It is important that the signal be unique in that it is applied only when reinforcement is to be delivered. If the signal is one that is often used for other purposes, the students will likely loose faith in the promise (a contract for a reinforcement) offered by the signal and the signal will loose much of its power as a training tool. Since precision timing is an important element of bridging, a signal that has a very short duration and is unique will be preferred. Spoken words, whistles, hand clapping, flashing lights, the click of a ballpoint pen, etc. can all be used, and each will have its own limitations.
The range of end target behavior will help identify what features are most needed in the bridging signal – the click of a ball point pen would NOT work well in a noisy environment or at long distances; the flashing of a light would require the animal to be looking directly at the light so would severely limit the animals range of motion and focus of attention; the spoken word is not very unique and is not very precise (not short duration).
For ease of training, using a uniform signal will be very helpful so it is best to choose a signal that will be effective for the broadest range of anticipated training behaviors. Dolphin trainers use a whistle or a special sound emitted through underwater speakers – a bit impractical for use in the house for training parrots. Clicker Trainers have discovered that the use of a version of the child’s toy “cricket” or “clicker”, is especially effective for most training of dogs, cats, horses, lamas, parrots, etc. and works well for a wide range of circumstances and behavior. The author primarily uses a clicker for training most behavior, and relies on a coach’s whistle as a back up or for behavior involving long distance, like some freeflight skills.
In common “trick” training terminology, there are four main elements involved in establishing effective communication between the trainer and the animal. 1) Bridging - a signal used to bridge the time gap between the desired specific action and the giving of the reinforcement; is also used as an event marker to precisely identify the action being reinforced. 2) Shaping the behavior – sometimes called successive approximation, communicating through tiny steps of change, used to build a desired behavior through increments of small improvements. 3) The Reinforcement - a desired treat, praise, “pat on the back”, or other stimulus that the behaving animal desires. 4) The Cue - the “green light” signal that if a particular behavior is performed, an offered reinforcement will be the result.
Training sessions: Frequency of learning: short-term memory improves with logarithmic exposure, eventually becomes long-term memory.
[1] Rewards and Punishments: It is the author’s belief that both of these terms offer significant distracting false images that predispose judgments and prejudice and interfere with understanding the actual training process, thus both terms will here be “avoided” unless they precisely apply.
[2] The author is not here suggesting that throwing rocks at dogs is normally an appropriate method of getting the dog out of the road. Actually, throwing a rock at the dog may cause the dog to take its attention away from the on-coming traffic and thus would probably be a poor solution to this problem. This example is only here offered to make a point clear and is not a suggested training method.