Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff. Группа авторов

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Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff - Группа авторов

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target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_06f5eaf4-89f2-5770-83af-c9b9f08a69c7">Box 3.1 Understanding Respondent Conditioning

      Can you identify the neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, and unconditioned response in this example?

      Nail trimming is essential to the well‐being of animals, but it could be an unpleasant experience if the owner is inexperienced at trimming nails. During a dog’s first experience with nail trimming, the dog might react calmly as his owner approaches him with the nail clippers. However, if the nail is trimmed too short, the dog could wince in pain. From then on, just the sight of the nail clippers can cause the dog to wince.

      Do you think you labeled them correctly? Here is the answer:

      The nail clippers are the neutral stimulus because it had no meaning to the dog prior to the trim. The unconditioned stimulus is getting the nails clipped. The unconditioned response is the pain the animal felt when the nail was trimmed too short because there is no conditioning required to make an animal react to pain. After pairing the nail clippers with the pain (conditioning), the once‐neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus and causes a conditioned response (just seeing the nail clippers can cause the animal to wince).

      3.3.2 Operant Conditioning

Photo depicts a pigeon in a modern, touch-screen-equipped operant chamber.

      Unlike responses learned through respondent conditioning, operant behaviors are those that “operate” or act on their environment to produce consequences. A key distinction between respondent behaviors and operant behaviors is that operant behaviors are strengthened and weakened by consequences. For example, if the key is turned then the car starts; if the tail is pulled then the dog bites; if the target is touched then food is delivered; if a leash is pulled then the dog is choked; if the electric fence is touched then the animal is shocked. With operant conditioning, the consequence only occurs if the animal engages in a particular behavior; the consequence impacts the likelihood that the behavior occurs again.

Increases behavior (reinforcement) Decreases behavior (punishment)
Stimulus is added (positive) Positive reinforcement Positive punishment
Stimulus is removed (negative) Negative reinforcement Negative punishment

      In negative reinforcement, a response results in the removal of an aversive event, and the response increases. The negative reinforcer is ordinarily something the animal tries to avoid or escape, such as a shock from an electric fence. For example, consider training a dog to sit. Instead of offering the dog a treat, a trainer might put pressure on the dog’s bottom to get the dog to sit and then release the pressure once the dog is sitting. Assuming the behavior of sitting increases, the behavior of sitting was negatively reinforced. The response (sitting) results in the removal of an event (pressure from the trainer’s hand) and the likelihood of the response increases (sitting when hand is on their bottom). A second example of negative reinforcement is a guard dog barking at a fence as a person walks by. If that person leaves the dog’s sight, the dog is likely to bark at the next person that comes to the fence. The response (barking) results in the removal of an event (seeing a person) and the likelihood

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