Procedure: The process of magazine training should take 1-3 sessions. However, it took Ruby a little longer than 3 days, but once she was able to associate the light with the delivery of food, she was much more successful. In order to properly magazine train, Ruby was deprived of food for approximately 4 days before we began training to ensure that she would be at 85% of her body weight before we began training. The first time Ruby was weighed, she came in at a 205, relatively small compared to the rest of the rats. By the time we finished her diet she was weighing in at 186.6, only 1.6 lbs away from her target weight of 185. Two days before training I began to feed her chocolate pellets. Rats do not eat all of a food substance the first time it is presented to them. They first nibble at the substance then return after a waiting period to ensure the food is safe to eat. For more information on the black and white hooded "fancy" rat see the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fancy_rat .
Magazine Training Day 1:
Ruby appeared to be pretty nervous as we began our magazine training which we began on February 23, 2016 at 3:36pm. She ran around the operant box sniffing around and didn't appear to be interested in the pellets she was provided. I definitely thought the food would appeal to her as her previous behavior seemed to indicate a great enjoyment for the food. The night before Ruby's training commenced, I put her rat chow and chocolate pellets in a clean soap dish. She removed the rat chow chucks and put them aside, returning to the chocolate pellets and began eating them first. Her initial eagerness for the chocolate pellets, I thought, indicated that she would do great in magazine training based on her apparent craving. We put a screen up to block out people and light, and that appeared to help slightly.
Results: We ended the session short (after 22mins) as I had dispensed 36 pellets and she only went to the hopper 3 times to get food.
Discussion: It appears that Ruby hasn't quite yet been able to make the association between the light and the food yet. Ending the session early was not ideal, but with her apparent disinterest in the food there was not much more that we could do.
Magazine Training Day 2:
The beginning of the day was good! Ruby went straight to the hopper and began eating the chocolate pellets. Little did I realize, the trainer before me left the pellets that their rat didn't consume in the hopper so Ruby was consuming far more pellets than the 24 I had given her at the start of the session. As soon as she had removed her head from the food magazine I would reward her with a pellet, but I noticed the dropping of the pellet wasn't making the clinking noise that it had the day before. I suspected that the person before me had left pellets in the hopper, but I didn't want to interrupt her training, as one of Karen Pryor's 8th law of training states "Do not interrupt a training session gratuitously, as that constitutes as punishment."
Results: I kept the session going for the full 30mins, but Ruby seemed very uninterested after about 15 mins.
Discussion: Ruby hasn't yet made the association with the bar and the reinforcements.
Magazine Training Days 3 and 4:
Days 3 and 4 were very similar. Ruby tends to begin the session by sniffing around and spending a fair amount of time in the front left hand corner of the operant box. Her nervousness seems to have decreased over the progression of the last couple of days making her more comfortable with the operant box.
Results: By the end of day 4 of magazine training, Ruby was finally able to associate the light and the sound of the dispenser. When she is on the opposite side of the chamber and I click the button to dispense a pellet, she will head back to the food magazine to receive her reinforcement.
Discussion: After 4 approximately 29 minute sessions, I am comfortable in reporting that Ruby is fully magazine trained. Ruby has met the criteria of magazine training, such that when she is on the opposite end of the chamber and I dispense a reinforcement, she will scurry to the food magazine. The first two days Ruby appeared to be extremely nervous. Remaining in the front left corner for extended periods of time (2-5mins at a time) and urinating as soon as I put her in the box led me to assume that her nervousness was preventing her from being successfully magazine trained. Magazine training Ruby was quite different than our discussions in class and what we discussed in the book. My expectation was that magazine training would take approximately a day, maybe 2, however it took Ruby 4 days to become properly magazine trained.
Here is a picture of Ruby and me after we completed our last day of magazine training! I was super excited.
Cumulative Record Magazine Training Day 3
No comments:
Post a Comment