If the learning is sufficiently shaped and reinforced to the best it can be, and reliability is achieved at this level; and if, then, this standard is attached to a new "performance cue", then there is no reason for the dog to give a reduced quality or reliability in show circumstances unless the stress level has gone beyond the dog's self management. Even then asking the dog for a strong, favourite behavior can reduce the stress significantly.
Training Theory
Learning in Humans: The School System
By Karen Pryor on 08/01/2001People interested in clicker training often ask how we might fit this approach into the school system: not the clicker per se, but the whole technology. Actually the behavioral scientists have been working on this for a long time. An exchange on the topic appeared on the ARF listserv, run by graduate students of the Department of Behavior Analysis at the University of North Texas. Here are some highlights.
Amygdala: the Neurophysiology of Clicker Training
By Karen Pryor on 08/01/2001About a year ago I gave a talk to the Association of Pet Dog Trainers about advances in clicker training, in which I discussed the possible relationship between clicking and the amygdala, a structure in the limbic system or oldest part of the brain. Many people have emailed me to find out more, so I thought I would give you a recap and an update.
Learning by Observation II
By Karen Pryor on 06/01/2001I have written about learning by observation several times, beginning with Lads Before the Wind in 1975 (reissued with four new chapters in 2000), and the account of two Steno bredanensis, or rough-toothed dolphins, that were inadvertently switched during shows and succeeded in doing most of each other's repertoires, including some shaped behaviors. One animal accepted blindfolds and located and retrieved sinking hoops, a behavior that had taken weeks to train in the model animal. The other animal succeeded in jumping through a hoop high above the water. (They had separate show routines, but could watch each other, day after day, from the holding tanks which had barred underwater gates. Probably sitting there saying "Heck, I could do that!")
Can Dogs Learn by Observation?
By Karen Pryor on 06/01/2001I'm very interested in the question of dogs learning by observation. The 'decisive' paper that proved that dogs don't learn by observation was a very limited study, I believe, involving two dogs with no particular reinforcement history, in which the observer dog failed to learn some task... And somehow it went into the zeitgeist as a firm conclusion, one I was totally prepared to believe in myself, at one time. I thought that dolphins do learn by observation, and dogs don't. Then I started giving seminars, and seeing all kinds of observational learning going on.
