Introduction
Introduction
The goal of this modification program was to decrease the occurrence by 90%. The behavior would be considered learned when the subject no longer needed to be given the “stay” command, where the subject does not leave the placement they were originally put in, more than the initial command. Meaning the subject would require no correction in the behavior throughout the time the individual is preparing, eating, putting away, taking out, or holding food. For this to be learned, the subject must successfully complete this three consecutive times within a span of 24 hours.
The following article discusses important information on how to choose reinforcers for animals, which was important research to do for the effectiveness of this modification program. Reading this article allowed the individuals administering the reinforcer to the participant understand what to use for a reinforcer and how effective the reinforcer is. This was also important because the individuals also needed to know if a reinforcer is no longer as strong as it needs to be in order to be effective.
This research article focuses on reward quantity and quality in reference to reward value and motivation of domesticated dogs. The introduction of this article discusses the use of positive reinforcers in training different animals, including working dogs, zoo animals, laboratory animals, and farm animals. There are benefits of using positive reinforcement compared to other reinforcement strategies such as; positive punishment or negative reinforcement. The benefits included in this article are; fewer indicators of stress, reduction of aggression, better obedience, and improved quality, reduced cost, and efficiency of collecting data.
The article discusses that training with positive reinforcement is only successful if the subject is motivated to obtain the stimuli given for the correct response to strengthen their behavior in the future. Without investigating the effectiveness of reinforcers the training could be insufficient.
To determine the value of a reward for animals, a preference test or motivation test is conducted. With this information, it is inferred that the reinforcer valued more is the one that the animal chooses more often, spends more time with, or consumes more of. The article also discusses a non-consummatory food preference test, where domesticated dogs sample each food by smelling and viewing, but it is inaccessible to them. The test shows temporal consistency, which indicates that this test is reliable for measuring food preferences on dogs that are pets.
In the results section there is a Non-Consummatory food preference test and Runway performance, both tested with quality and quantity. The study showed that the dogs had a preference for both higher food quality and quantity in the preliminary concurrent choice test. Although, consistency was not shown as related to motivation in the runway task. The dogs did run faster as a response to the higher quality of the food, but the change of speed was not significantly proven for the change of quantity.
The limitations in this study could be population related, as the dogs were not all male or all female, along with the varying age. An older dog may have less interest compared to a younger dog, along with physical ability to run as fast. Personality of the dog could also be playing a factor in the results. The population size wasn’t very large, limiting the validity of the results. Regarding the purpose of the study, this could not be a valid result for other species based on the subjects involved.
The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of different values and changes in food rewards relative to quality and quantity, looking at the effect on behavior. The study was also aiming to investigate “whether preference in a concurrent choice test reflected relative incentive motivation for different rewards in a single-operant task”.
Ellis, S. L., Thompson, H., & Burman, O. H. (2018). Reinforcer effectiveness in dogs—The influence of quantity and quality. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 206, 87–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2018.05.016
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