Sniffy Training

     In preparation for training our rats, we were assigned to work with Sniffy, a virtual lab rat. In the program I magazine trained him, shaped him, put him on a VR5 schedule of reinforcement, and put finally put him on extinction.

     The first step in training Sniffy was magazine training. During magazine training, Sniffy learns to associate the sound of the magazine with having food in the hopper. To get Sniffy to develop this association, I delivered a food pellet whenever he came close to the food hopper. Magazine training Sniffy did not take very long at all. After about 15 minutes Sniffy learned to associate the magazine sound with food being available in the hopper. 

This is Sniffy's cumulative record for magazine training.

     After Sniffy was magazine trained, I shaped him to press start pressing the bar. To begin this, I rewarded Sniffy every time he raised up while facing the back of the cage. I eventually became more strict, only rewarding him when he raised up near the bar. Sniffy then began to occasionally press the bar on his own. After about an hour of shaping, Sniffy appeared to be shaped.

This is the majority of Sniffy's cumulative record for shaping

     After shaping, I put Sniffy on a VR5 reinforcement schedule. So, he now had to press the bar on average 5 times, instead of just once, to get a food pellet. Right away Sniffy begin to press the bar more frequently. Sniffy seemed to be more focused on pressing the bar while on this reinforcement schedule than while I was shaping him. For example, he stayed in the area around the bar for the majority of the time and rarely explored the rest of the cage.

This is a section of Sniffy's cumulative record while on the VR5 reinforcement schedule

     Finally, the behavior Sniffy had worked so hard to learn, pressing the bar, was extinguished. In order to do this, Sniffy was no longer rewarded when he pressed the bar. The associations he built between the pressing the bar and receiving food quickly went away.

This is Sniffy's cumulative record for extinction.

     Training Sniffy was actually really fun. Personally, I think it was a great introduction to working with a live rat. I because of this, I was much more comfortable during training than I would have been without training Sniffy.