Do you agree?<\/p>\n
Do you poison the cue? The environment? Yourself? \u2013 if you after a negatively reinforced response add a positive reinforcer (aka combined reinforcement)?<\/p>\n
Some of the readers of this blog may say \u201cyes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some may say \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some may say \u201chuh?\u201d<\/p>\n
After all, that question doesn\u2019t make sense if you\u2019re unfamiliar with those terms. Stay tuned, I\u2019ll explain them in a minute.<\/p>\n
I think the right answer is \u201cit depends\u201d.<\/p>\n Before we start untangling the potential pitfalls of combined reinforcement – why is this an important question?<\/p>\n This question is important because cross-over trainers <\/strong>(I\u2019m thinking horse people here) may find it hard to transition from negative reinforcement to positive reinforcement without using combined reinforcement.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the horse training world, the paradigm shift from negative reinforcement-based training to positive reinforcement training is a huge leap for both the traditionally schooled trainer – and the horse.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been told that many horse people try making that shift, fail and give up \u2013 reverting back to the familiar, old-school, negative reinforcement-based training.<\/p>\n In my book, the failure to incorporate positive reinforcement in any training regime would lead to potential unnecessary suffering, and I can\u2019t help thinking that a more gradual shift may perhaps be less difficult than an all-or-nothing approach in some cases. Maybe the difficulty in shifting from negative to positive reinforcement could be addressed by transitioning through combined reinforcement?<\/p>\n In my opinion, combined reinforcement has the potential of either increasing or decreasing suffering, depending on how it\u2019s carried out – and what the alternatives are.<\/em><\/p>\n I may be completely off track here. After all, I\u2019m not a horse trainer, I haven\u2019t lived through that transition personally. So, this blog post is hypothetical \u2013 but I\u2019m counting on you, dear reader, to let me know whether you agree with me – or not (and yes, there’s been disagreement, keep reading!).<\/p>\n But first, some definitions \u2013 just to make sure we\u2019re on the same page.<\/p>\n Negative reinforcement is when the animal learns to escape<\/em> or avoid<\/em> something unpleasant by performing a specific behaviour.<\/p>\n Escape<\/em> or avoidance<\/em> are technical terms in this context.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a doggie example, just so that the dog people feel that reading on is relevant \u2013 after all, the same learning principles apply to all animal species, not just horses.<\/p>\n Say you\u2019re walking your dog. He pulls ahead, and the leash gets taught, which is uncomfortable. So he stops pulling, which reduces the pressure on the leash. He just performed an escape response<\/em>. Not \u2018escape\u2019 as in running for his life<\/em> but as in performing a behaviour that terminates an ongoing unpleasant stimulus<\/em>.<\/p>\n In other words, the dog who successfully performs an escape response has control over the end of the unpleasant stimulation<\/em>. He has figured out how to end<\/em> it.<\/p>\n Later he may learn what serves as a warning signal announcing that he\u2019s about to experience the tightening of the leash \u2013 whether it\u2019s a certain behaviour from the handler, or something that happens in the environment, such as seeing another dog. So he returns closer to the handler when he perceives the warning signal, and has thus avoided<\/em> experiencing the increased leash pressure.<\/p>\n \u2018Avoidance\u2019 is a technical term here. It means that the aversive stimulus<\/em> is not applied.<\/em> A horse who\u2019s standing still as you\u2019re saddling him is showing avoidance behaviour if he\u2019s learned that shying away is met with unpleasantness<\/em>. So, even though he\u2019s just standing still, technically he\u2019s showing avoidance behaviour.<\/p>\n So, for the animal, successful avoidance means controlling the start of the unpleasant stimulation. He has figured out how to avoid its onset.<\/em><\/p>\n This concept of control<\/em> is extremely important when it comes to empowering animals and maintaining high welfare. Empowered animals are resilient; they aren\u2019t as emotionally affected by aversive events. And vice versa, the welfare of animals who lack control over aversive events is potentially challenged.<\/p>\n It may sound as though I\u2019m promoting negative reinforcement, as if it\u2019s unproblematic. \u201cIt gives the animal control; the animal gets empowered and resilient\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that simple.<\/p>\n Negative reinforcement is often carried out badly,<\/a><\/em> and since it involves aversive stimuli, it has the same potential unwanted, unhealthy and dangerous side effects as punishment.<\/em><\/p>\n What dangerous side effects? I listed 20 problems with punishment here<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, negative reinforcement potentially carries some serious fall-out, and there are more effective ways of getting behaviour<\/a>, such as using positive reinforcement.<\/p>\n Positive reinforcement is when the animal learns to get access to some type of resource, or something pleasant, by performing a specific behaviour. For instance, the dog gets treats, praise, petting or eye contact when he stays close to the handler. He then spends more time close to the handler to get continued access to those resources.<\/p>\n This approach to teaching and training animals is a lot less problematic than negative reinforcement, and generally results in more enthusiastic learners and better performance.<\/p>\n Also, positive reinforcement is generally more forgiving if you mess up as a trainer. Not to say that positive reinforcement training is without potential pitfalls<\/a>, though.<\/p>\n So which choices are there?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019re a traditionally schooled horse trainer, skilled at using negative reinforcement\u2026 would you wake up one day and drop those highly developed skills, and switch to something you\u2019ve never tried before \u2013 positive reinforcement?<\/p>\n As far as I\u2019ve understood, and to their immense credit, many horse people actually do try this. They leave familiar ground and try something new, perhaps without an experienced coach mentoring them \u2013 and then their horse gets overexcited and starts mugging them, and many of those brave trainers quit.<\/p>\n Sound familiar?<\/p>\n Not being a horse person, I didn\u2019t realize this problem existed until I started hearing it from my students, but it\u2019s a story that keeps coming back.<\/p>\n What is the problem, then? Why is transitioning so difficult?<\/p>\n One part of the issue may be that the would-be cross-over trainer is changing too many things at once.<\/p>\n When teaching using positive reinforcement, we often shape<\/em> behaviour. We don\u2019t expect behaviour to change in leaps, but rather in baby steps. We change it by increments, making small adjustments to existing behaviour.<\/p>\n We avoid setting the animal up to fail. Success should be easy, at every step of the way.<\/p>\n We avoid frustration.<\/p>\n And yet \u2013 we expect cross-over horse trainers to make that huge leap, without shaping the transition from negative to positive reinforcement!<\/p>\n Setting them up to fail, as it were.<\/p>\n What I\u2019m suggesting is that we help them start where they\u2019re at, and consider \u201cteaching-positive-reinforcement-to-a-transitioning-horse-trainer\u201d as a shaping procedure. It has the added benefit of being a non-confrontative approach that might make the trainer who\u2019s still on the fence about trying positive reinforcement more likely to listen to and implement suggestions for change.<\/a><\/p>\n A rough shaping plan may look like this.<\/p>\n This rough shaping outline may sound easy to implement, and I realize it\u2019s not. I\u2019m not a horse trainer so I wouldn\u2019t know exactly how to go about doing it, either; which exercises to use to help teach the required skills and getting momentum through this shaping process?<\/p>\n Beyond the difficulty in identifying the right practical exercises, I see three main reasons why it might fail.<\/p>\n So, returning to the first question I asked: Is there some truth to the risk of poisoning?<\/p>\n Well. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.<\/p>\n Hence this blog post – because that \u201csometimes, no\u201d would bring back step 2 into the shaping process, and ultimately help more horse people start using positive reinforcement.<\/p>\n The potential problem is that the cue asking the animal for the response may become poisoned<\/em> (as may the environment, including the trainer).<\/a> Once poisoned, the cue is both a warning that if the response isn\u2019t shown, unpleasant things will happen, and a promise that once the correct response is shown, there\u2019ll be goodies.<\/p>\n The poisoned cue is ambiguous, since what follows may sometimes, but not always, involve unpleasantness.\u00a0 And so the animal reacts emotionally (fearfully, showing avoidance) to the poisoned cue.<\/p>\n So how likely is a cue followed by combined reinforcement to become poisoned?<\/p>\n I\u2019d say it depends on a couple of factors, and poisoning can perhaps be avoided by considering the following:<\/p>\n I think cues get poisoned when:<\/p>\n One oft-discussed Master thesis examined the effects of combined reinforcement in comparison to solely positive reinforcement and found that the cue (and the environment) did indeed get poisoned<\/a>. In that study, the unpleasant stimulus that poisoned the cue involved pulling the dog into the desired position by tugging the leash.<\/p>\n In the study, the dog was wearing a harness and was pulled into position if he didn\u2019t respond to the cue. Later, he learned to avoid pulling by walking to the desired position on cue. In other words, he learned an avoidance<\/em> response, but he never learned an escape response.<\/em> Also, the tugging was aversive enough to lead to emotional responses.<\/p>\n And so in that study, the cue became poisoned, and there was a big difference between behaviours trained with combined reinforcement compared to behaviours trained solely with positive reinforcement.<\/p>\n What would have been the outcome if the intensity of the tugging wasn\u2019t as aversive<\/em>? If the animal learned to escape it<\/em> \u2013 perform a behaviour to terminate it \u2013 learned to control the aversive?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/illis.se\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2018\/09\/poison-bottle.jpg\")
<\/a>Helping horses and their people.<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Negative reinforcement \u2013 escape or avoidance<\/h5>\n
<\/a>Positive reinforcement \u2013 the preferred approach.<\/h5>\n
The difficulty of transitioning<\/h5>\n
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Poisoned cues<\/h5>\n
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