2Q versus 4Q (continued)

[Posted to PositiveGunDogs on 10-1-2009 at 8:27 AM]

On Oct 1, 2009, at 7:48 AM, Lindsay Ridgeway wrote:

I'll throw in a few more points because they are so important to field
training, though they may play little role in other animal training.

I just thought of a few other points I'd like to mention:

• -R has a trait that is unique among the four quadrants: -R conditioning occurs even when the aversive stimulus is not presented. As I understand it, this is why phobias sometimes feed on themselves, with the subject's fear increasing over time. What's happening is that every time the subject successfully avoids the aversive stimulus, that is a reinforcing event for the avoidance behavior, and the avoidance behavior may actually become more vigorous over time even though no aversive stimulus is occurring. In my opinion, this fact may be the most important way in which 4Q trainers have an advantage over 2Q trainers: Their dogs continue to be reinforced by their -R methods every time a cue is given, long after the conditioning has switched from escape conditioning to avoidance conditioning. 2Q trainers don't use the -R quadrant and therefore require an ongoing schedule of explicit reinforcement.
• I spoke of the difference between +R provided by the trainer, versus +R provided by the act of performing the behavior. The terms for those variations are extrinsic versus intrinsic +R.
• Retrievers do not necessarily experience intrinsic +R during their early involvement with retrieving, or at least not a useful form of intrinsic +R. I have a name for conducting training in a way that attempts to leverage the dog's dawning discovery of intrinsic pleasure in the desired behavior: I call it "discovery training".
  

LL&L