Monica v. Sniffy

The process of shaping my virtual rat, Sniffy, and my real rat, Monica, was the same.  I spent two sessions, 52:20 total time, shaping Monica.  This elapsed time does not include day 4, which began with shaping, but for the majority of the time Monica was on an FR1 schedule.  Sniffy did not take as long to shape, about 45 minutes.  The slope of the cumulative record from day 3 is not steep which means that Monica did not press the bar very often.

Cumulative Record for Day 3 - Shaping

Magazine training Monica was easier than magazine training Sniffy.  This may have been because I had no idea what I was doing when I started with Sniffy or that Dr. Trench assisted me in training Monica.  Monica offered a wider variety of behaviors than Sniffy, which made it easier to for her to make the connection with the sound and the magazine.  The wide variety of behaviors Monica demonstrated also helped me in the shaping process.  I was able to reinforce numerous behaviors that encouraged her to remain in the back right corner near the bar.  My Sniffy training was not broken into two training sessions.  I was able to finish shaping in one sitting whereas Monica shaping occurred on multiple days and across a weekend.

Training Monica I learned how to transition from magazine training to shaping to a FR1 schedule of reinforcement.  Before each of the parts were completed, I was working on the next.  It was a back and forth process because I would reinforce more advanced behaviors and then have to regress to reinforcing more simple behaviors.  In Sniffy, each part of training had to be completed before you could progress to the next level.  Sniffy was less realistic; however, the forced division of the training sessions also helped my learning.  When the steps were separated, I was able to better understand what was included in each one.

In the future Dr. Trench should continue to use both Sniffy and real rats.  Sniffy helps prepare for the real rat, and the real rat helps to demonstrate how the concepts are applied in real world training, not just simulated on a computer.