Shaping

 

    

September 14 was Bennie's first day of shaping. She trained with Dr. Trench and me for 22 minutes. During that time, she received an impressive four reinforcements from pressing the lever herself. The other 33 reinforcements came from the hand switch that I used to reward her approximations toward the desired lever pushing. For example, she was initially rewarded for looking at the lever, then for approaching the lever, then for sniffing the lever, touching the lever, and finally pressing the lever.

Bennie continued her shaping on September 15, with her training lasting 26 minutes. On day two, Bennie pushed the lever a whopping 82 times. 

Overall, it took Bennie 48 minutes to shape. I would say she learned quickly. On day one, Bennie pressed the lever 4 times. On day two, she pressed the lever 82 times. Because we saw a 2000% increase in Bennie's response rate, I can confidently say she learned fairly rapidly.

Shaping Bennie was similar to what we learned in the classroom. Our course describes shaping as the "reinforcement of successive approximations of a desired behavior." After rewarding Bennie for an approximated behavior, I would slowly come to expect more of her until she performed a feat that was closer to the lever push. Because of this, I was able to shape her in only two days.