Shaping Ratna Days 2-7: Training Session 3-8

Goal: Continue to shape Ratna until she develops an observable association between pressing the bar in the Operant Box and the reception of the food pellet reinforcement from the magazine.

Procedure: Shaping training sessions were held from 4-4:30 pm every day. The dates, Ratna’s weight for training on that day, reinforcements given, and bar presses Ratna performed are all shown in Table 1 below. For the following training sessions I continued to shape Ratna to press the bar. On day 2 of shaping I gave Ratna reinforcements every time she got close to the bar. Behaviors that were reinforced were sniffing the bar, touching the bar, rearing up in the front of the bar.  On days 3-5, I continued the procedure in relatively similar way; however, I started reinforcing Ratna when she had one paw on the bar and then I started reinforcing when she had both paws on the bar. On day 5, Dr. Trench came to help me train Ratna. She advised me to continue shaping but to only reinforce after Ratna put both her paws on the bar a few times. Days 6-7 I followed Dr. Trench’s advice and only reinforced after Ratna placed both her paws on the lever. I also revised Karen Pryor’s 10 Laws of Shaping mentioned in her book, Don’t Shoot the Dog. The rule she mentions is to revise the shaping plan or change the shaping procedure to create a more eliciting progress in behavior. One way I changed my plan was to reinforce Ratna only when she had both paws on the bar and reinforcements were only given after she performed that behavior 3-5 times. As you can in the table below, I gave Ratna fewer reinforcements on days 6 & 7 in hopes that she would start pressing the bar.

 

Table 1: Ratna’s Data for Shaping Days 2-7(Training Session 3-8). Target weight: 199 g

Date	Schedule/ Day	Runtime (minutes)	Ratna’s Weight (g)	Reinforcements	Bar Presses
2/26	Shaping Day 2	29.69	197.4	64	4
2/29	Shaping Day 3	29.46	195	61	4
3/1	Shaping Day 4	29.55	196.5	60	5
3/2	Shaping Day 5	29.54	200.1	66	3
3/3	Shaping Day 6	29.35	200.5	46	1
3/4	Shaping Day 7	29.40	199.5	43	1

Results: As shown in Table 1, Ratna’s maximum number of bar presses was only 5 this week. Ratna clearly has not developed an association between the action of bar pressing and delivery of the reinforcement, the chocolate pellets. She was reinforced for various behaviors in the first few days of shaping, but in the last half of the shaping days I only reinforced when she put both paws on the bar. I did not want to include a cumulative record yet since Ratna hasn’t been pressing the bar regularly. Hopefully, if Ratna starts pressing the bar 10-12 times I will be able to get a nice cumulative record graph to post in the future.

Discussion: Shaping Ratna these last few days has been pretty frustrating for me. I entered each training session with an optimistic mind that Ratna would get better. If she pressed the bar even just once, I grew with excitement. Days 2-4 Ratna had a slight association between bar pressing and the delivery of reinforcements. Days 5-7 I changed my shaping plan slightly, but Ratna pressed the bar less times. She did get frustrated when I did not reward every time she put both paws on the bar. Ratna has the idea to put her paws on the bar but isn’t pressing it fully. I also observed Ratna’s body language towards me. When she put her paws on the bar and I did not reinforce her, she would look at me like she was asking me to give her a treat. She’s a clever one for sure! Another observation I saw was that Ratna would go to the left corner of the Operant Box and sniff for a few minutes in that corner. A possible reason for this could be that Ratna smelled the chips under the cage, possibly air coming in from that corner or the scent of other rats that used that Operant Box before me. I started wiping down the box before training,but that didn't change the behavior. She also did a lot of grooming in the cage. Another observation I noticed this week was that Ratna was eager to get into the Operant Box every day. When I took her out of her cage to put in her in the Operant Box she would leap out of my hands and jump right in. I could tell she was excited to go in there because she immediately would go to the food hopper to see if the special chocolate pellets were there. Once the session ended, I had a hard time getting her out of the Operant Box. She wanted to stay in there and would cling herself the floor. Although this week of shaping did not go as planned, I’m determined to continue working with Ratna. She might take longer to shape, but we will get there together through patience and perseverance. As noted from class readings, lecture, and working with Sniffy, shaping is not an easy process. It does take time and every individual varies on how fast they learn. One thing is for sure, Ratna is learning slowly but surely. :)