Ruby vs. Sniffy

In general, I found the Sniffy program to be very useful in my understanding of how to properly train a rat via operant conditioning. However I don't believe that sniff these training gave me as good of an understanding when it comes to The time and amount of commitment and patients necessary to train a live rat. However, the extent to which I would need time, commitment, and training was definitely not the same for Sniffy and Ruby. Magazine training Ruby was very different than magazine training Sniffy. Sniffy took approximately 30mins, but unfortunately Ruby's training took almost 4 times that amount of time (112mins). Sniffy's training for FR1 schedule of reinforcement took approximately 105 mins, whereas Ruby's training for FR1 took about 180mins. Interestingly, Ruby's training for FR2 actually took slightly less time, approximately 54mins total, while Sniffy's FR2 training took about 63mins.

Cumulative Record for Sniffy FR2

Cumulative Record for Ruby FR2

 Strengths of Sniffy:

- The Sniffy book gives a fantastic explanation of operant conditioning and gives step by step, easy to follow instructions on how to shape sniffy.

- I definitely felt more comfortable with the conditioning termonology and processes after completing the Sniffy Training.

- Not super time consuming and efficient 

Weaknesses of Sniffy:

- Not exactly an accurate representation of how quickly our rats will learn.

- The data complied for Sniffy is not able to be used in research

Strengths of live training:

- Can be used in research

- Gives actual hands on experience which helps students understand how long it actually takes to train an animal

Weaknesses of live training:

- Extremely time consuming

- Results take much longer to show up.

Would reccomend for future classes.