Too Much Success? A Surprising Challenge Arises

An unexpected challenge arose when Bennie started mastering lever-training. Her success was so great that I began to worry that the pellets would satiate mid-session because she earned more than 100 pellets during a training session. This proved to be a challenge because Bennie started gaining a considerable amount of weight. Although I lowered the amount of rat chow Bennie ate by a small amount, I did not feel comfortable lowering Bennie's food below six or seven grams. Despite this, she was still over her target weight because of the multitude of reinforcements she was earning. I wondered how I could keep her motivated to keep pressing the lever without earning too much food.

On the one hand, I was encouraged because Bennie was doing so well in her training. On the other hand, I feared her progress would diminish because she would lack motivation to work if she was not hungry. The problems I faced were mostly my fault. In retrospect, if Bennie was so successful at certain fixed ratio schedules, I should have moved her schedule up more quickly. As our training sessions continued, I did advance Bennie's fixed ratio schedule and this solved the problem. Bennie had to press the lever more times for each reinforcement. She would eventually be pressing the lever over 1,000 times per session yet would not receive too many reinforcements. If I could go back, I would not let Bennie continue on a fixed ratio schedule if she was earning a significant amount of reinforcements too quickly. The mistake I made was partly due to inexperience and wanting to ensure Bennie was ready to advance. However, Pryor also advised me that this was a possibility. In her ten laws of shaping, Pryor says to stay ahead of your subject and have a plan if they makes sudden, unexpected advancements. My training could have been improved if I had planned for Bennie making such unanticipated progress.