Dr Susan Friedman « Bird Training Blog

Archive for the ‘Dr Susan Friedman’ Category

Punishment Revisted

Monday, August 11th, 2008

In my last blog article I wrote about the importance of using the terms of Operant Conditioning (OC) and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) correctly and consistently. The article was inspired by what I considered to be a disappointing article published by Karen Pryor, in particular her discussion of Punishment. In response to my post I received a most excellent and well thought out email from Chris Shank, a well respected parrot trainer. Chris wrote:

I was quite interested in your response on Karen Pryor’s comments on punishment from her website. I’m currently reading Sidman’s, Coercion and its Fallout.’ Fascinating reading. In chapter 2, pg. 45, he says this about punishment:

‘But we define punishment without appealing to any behavioral effect; punishment occurs whenever an action is followed either by a loss of positive or a gain of negative reinforcers. This definition says nothing about the effect of a punisher on the action that produces it.

It says neither that punishment is the oppositie [sic] of reinforcement nor that punishment reduces the future likelihood of punished actions.’

This is indeed one area where Sidman appears to be at odds with almost all other contemporary behaviorists.

After receiving Chris’ email I did some additional research just to be sure that my understanding of this term was supportable. In addition to having a long conversation with Dr Susan Friedman on this subject I also referred to my copy of “Learning and Behavior” by Paul Chance.

What we have here is an example of how science works; ideas are postulated, discussed, and tested. Science is dynamic and the definition of Punishment is a wonderful example of how science progresses and changes as new ideas are presented, challenged, and tested. If science did not operate this way then behaviorists would not be thinking of Punishment at all since B. F. Skinner himself (the “father” of behavioral science) stated that from his experiments Punishment was ineffective. What those that have followed Skinner have discovered through challenge and experiment is that indeed Punishment does work and possibly the levels of aversives being used by Skinner were too low to be effective. The Chance book cites some excellent studies on Punishment and for those who wish to dig deeper into this subject I would highly recommend reading his chapter on Punishment.

The definition of Punishment I use is the one used by the majority of respected contemporary behaviorists and animal trainers:

“Punishment is a consequence delivered after a behavior that serves to reduce the frequency or intensity with which the behavior is exhibited,” Susan Friedman – “The Facts About Punishment“

“The procedure of providing consequences for a behavior that reduce the strength of that behavior,” Paul Chance – Learning and Behavior

“The procedure of providing consequence for a response that reduces the frequency of that response” – International Marine Mammal Trainers’ Association – Glossary

“The procedure of providing consequences for a behavior that decrease the frequency of that behavior.” – University of South Florida Glossary of Behavior

The way that science tests these definitions is by challenging them with real behavioral examples; indeed this is what Sidman does in another article where he challenges the definition (The Distinction Between Positive and Negative Reinforcement: Some Additional Considerations). He presents a number of test examples that he believes show that the above definition is wrong. For example he asks “When a parent ends a child’s eating between meals by hiding the cookie jar, has the child’s cookie eating been punished?” The answer is patently no, however I see this as comparing apples and oranges because what the parent did was to change the antecedents of behavior (hide the jar) and NOT apply a contingent consequence to reduce the behavior.

In reading the above article by Sidman it appears that his main argument against the contemporary definition of Punishment is two-fold. Firstly that it is not how Skinner defined it and secondly that the contemporary definition was simply adopted by behaviorists without the proper scientific discussion, debate, and challenge. In the light of the fact that Skinner stated that Punishment was ineffective one can only assume that any conclusions he drew about Punishment after this were flawed or at least based upon shaky ground. Since we now know that indeed Punishment does work we need an update to that part of the Skinnerian hypotheses; the contemporary definitions above provide that update. Secondly, in challenging the contemporary definition of Punishment Sidman is addressing the second part of his objection to the definition and it appears that the majority of contemporary behaviorists are meeting his challenge and successfully defending the definition I gave and those above. Therefore through his challenges he is actually encouraging contemporary behaviorists to fulfill the need for challenge, debate, and test of the definition. This is a good thing since to date those challenges have been answered.

So, I stand by my original article and its definition of Punishment, at least until through its continuing journey science brings a better way of expressing the concepts that we use to describe behavior. And that after all is what these terms are all about; building a common language that practitioners of behavior change (i.e. trainers) can use to communicate clearly with both peers and students.

Chris asked in her email if in the light of the writings of Sidman on this subject it was correct to say that Karen Pryor was “wrong” in her discussion of Punishment. Having read some more and talked with others about this I stand by the point of my article; the terminology of OC and ABA can be confusing even when used correctly, to mix historical and contemporary concepts can only lead to deeper confusion; especially when these concepts are held to be correct by the majority of contemporary behaviorists. I find this especially important in arena that Karen Pryor publishes her writings, the pet community. It is vitally important that those who have respect and reputation in that community communicate in a cohesive and accurate manner the principles and terminology of the science. I still feel that Karen Pryor’s article failed to meet those criteria and yes I believe she was wrong in her definition of Punishment.

My thanks go to Chris Shank for opening this discussion in such an interesting way.

In closing I would like to refer back to my previous articles about Primary and Secondary reinforcers. I was sent a clip from an internet posting that stated that my understanding of these terms was incorrect. I do not propose to reopen that discussion since I believe I clearly stated the correct definitions of those items in the original articles and that the poster of the message continues to be mistaken. I will simply refer anyone who is confused about the terms back to my original articles.

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Dr Susan Friedman, Questions, Reinforcement, Sid Price, Training, Weight management | No Comments »

Recognizing how not to do it!

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Just recently there seems to have been a flood of experts available online to solve all kinds of parrot behavioral issues, it is also worthy of note that many of these experts seem to have tendrils back to a single source. That single source appears to be rather inexperienced in training in general and behavioral science for sure!

I am not going to mention any names or link to any web sites as on the internet the ranking of names and sites in Google and other search engines relies upon other sites’ links to each site. The more times a site is linked to the better its ranking. Besides which my philosophy is to educate people so that they are capable of recognizing who really understands their subject and who is simply selling snake-oil!

While browsing a Yahoo group this morning I saw a link to some information about parrot training, it was a video being promoted to demonstrate the skills of the expert, unabashed self promotion. Well I can’t argue with that, everyone who has a business knows the power of the reputation of the people involved in that business and what better way to illustrate one’s skills than a video on YouTube!

The video showed two segments of biting birds and how the behavior was fixed “in minutes”. I doubt it was actually fixed at all, but that isn’t the point of this article. The point of this article is to bring attention to the technique used and more importantly to use this to show the linkage between two things that I try to avoid. Firstly Negative Reinforcement and secondly aversives.

So, imagine a bird standing on a perch, a person approaches and immediately the bird begins to lunge towards the person. The person stops and (being directed by an of-camera voice) then steps back as a “click” is heard. This is repeated with the person approaching closer and closer and a “click” just as they step back. After some time (15 minutes according to the off-camera commentary) the person is able to allow the bird to nuzzle their hand without getting bitten.

What is going on here?

To understand one needs to break down the technique into two parts. First, the approach of the person is clearly an aversive from the bird’s perspective. As I said earlier I believe that aversives should be avoided, they do nothing to add to a positive, trusting relationship with the bird. Secondly, the person walking away appears to be reinforcing the fact that the bird did not bite (not that it really had the chance to; the person was way out of reach!). I certainly did not see any behavioral change that warranted a click and retreat. However, if we assume that the trainer perceived some behavior they liked then asking the person to walk away may have reinforced that behavior. So what we have here is Negative Reinforcement. Again, not a contributor to trust between trainer and bird.

I have read one comment that this technique is flooding. In my opinion that is not the case because the aversive (person too close to the bird) was removed. If this were flooding the person would simply have stood there, maybe even gotten closer until the bird stopped the lunging etc..

What this video shows, in addition to not being the best way to deal with a biting bird, is that typically Negative Reinforcement and the purposeful introduction of aversives are inseparable. In order to apply Negative Reinforcement (removing the person) the aversive (again the person) had to be introduced by the trainer.

Finally, just to drive home the point of what a great example of how not to deal with a biting bird this is let me ask you to think about this … was the bird ever positively reinforced? I certainly didn’t see it, once again nothing that happened in these training sessions worked towards establishing a positive, trusting relationship between trainer and bird.

Here is an article written by Dr Susan Friedman and Lee McGuire about biting. It was first published in one of the best resources for how to train companion birds the right way, Good Bird Magazine.

Sid

Posted in Articles, Dr Susan Friedman, GoodBird Magazine, Sid Price | No Comments »

The Primary/Secondary Reinforcement Dichotomy

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

A couple of weeks ago I got an email about a statement I made about secondary reinforcers.

“Once the subject understands the training process it may be possible to introduce secondary or conditioned reinforcers such as attention, verbal praise, or access to toys.”

The writer questioned if I really thought that my examples were secondary reinforcers. This question lead me into some research because while I really did think they were secondary, otherwise I would not have written it, a good trainer should not blindly hold on to what they currently believe, but investigate and question those beliefs. This is one of the tenets of good science too. I try to keep in mind the following quotation:

“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.” – Robert Oxton Bolt.

Before digging into this subject I would like to thank Dr Susan Friedman for her help in clarifying my thoughts on the subject of reinforcers and also for sending me into some interesting thought loops as we discussed this subject over the past week or so.

In my discussions of this with Dr. Friedman she pointed out that primary/secondary is a man made concept and in nature it is unlikely that we find such a clear cut division. The division is used by behavioral scientists and trainers to convey the concept that many neutral stimuli can become reinforcers through close, repeated pairing with a primary reinforcer (secondary reinforcers).

From a behaviorists standpoint there are three groupings of reinforcers; those that are from the evolutionary history of the animal, the so called “hard-wired” reinforcers, those that are based upon the past history of the individual, and those operating in the immediate environment. Of these three the first one groups together the primary reinforcers. To quote Dr. Friedman, “… primary reinforcers are a very short list — when primary reinforcers are understood to mean automatic, without prior experience.” She also added “Our (behavior analysts) adage is, when in doubt call it a secondary.”

So are “attention, verbal praise, or access to toys” primary, i.e. “automatic, without prior experience”? Personally I don’t think they are and to again quote Dr. Friedman “… it is likely that for social species, affiliation behaviors in a broad sense is [sic] a primary reinforcer but the behaviors used to get that outcome are largely learned.”

This last point about affiliation is worth expanding a little. Affiliation describes the interaction of social species, e.g. the mutual preening of a bonded pair of birds. It is often cited as support for head-scratching of companion birds as a primary reinforcer. However, as Dr. Friedman also points out, there are no hands in the wild! A bird needs to learn that a hand approaching its head will deliver a potentially enjoyable scratch. So, if it needs to learn this by definition it is a secondary reinforcer. Similarly being in close proximity to a social group member or mate in the wild can not be used as justification for similar close contact with a human. Once again the bird needs to learn that a human may bring reinforcement, therefore it is secondary!

Plus, there is another point that excludes reinforcers such as attention from being primary and that is that it may not be reinforcing across all members of a species. True primary reinforcers are primary reinforcement across all individuals of a species.

This is a subject that has been endlessly discussed by behavioral scientists for almost as long as the science has been practiced. It is worth restating that the primary/secondary dichotomy is manmade and nature is rarely so clean in its distinctions. The best way to think of primaries is as a very short list with the distinct characteristic of being automatic and without prior experience, i.e. instinctual, not learned, and from the evolutionary history of the animal. Everything else is secondary.

Keep the questions coming by email.

Sid.

Posted in Dr Susan Friedman, Questions, Reinforcement, Sid Price, Training | No Comments »

ABCs … a training tool

Friday, February 29th, 2008

Earlier I discussed the major terms that are used in behavioral analysis and training; I would like to briefly write about the use of these terms in performing a functional analysis of behavior and how this analysis is the foundation of training decisions.

By using functional analysis a trainer is able to develop a training plan that may be used to reduce unwanted behavior or to increase a desired behavior. It is a systematic way of observing, documenting, and discussing behavior. I would recommend reading “The ABCs of Behavior” by Dr Susan Friedman for an excellent article on the subject.

There are three elements to a functional analysis; antecedents, behavior, and consequences. The antecedents are those things that precede the behavior and the consequences are what happen right after it. In a very simple example:

A – Trainer presents their hand to the bird to step onto.

B – Birds steps onto hand.

C – Trainer gives bird a reward.

The probable future outcome is that when the trainer presents their hand for the bird to step onto the bird will willingly step onto it.
In considering this example we can learn some important lessons. One could say that the probability of the bird stepping onto the hand depends on if it considers the potential reward valuable enough. While this is true one should remember that the probability the behavior will be performed or repeated also depends very much on the antecedents too. Although in the above example I simply stated a single antecedent there are in fact many and they all play a part in the performance of the behavior. Here is an expanded list of antecedents:

The bird is comfortable in the environment.
Are there new sights or sounds in the environment the bird may not be familiar with?
The bird understands the training process, i.e. performing a requested behavior earns a reward.
The bird understands that presenting a flat hand is a request to step onto the hand.
The bird has a trusting relationship with the trainer.
The bird is physically capable of stepping onto the hand in the position presented.
etc …

As you can see failure to perform the desired behavior may be because the trainer did not really set the bird up to succeed rather than the bird not valuing the reward enough. This is a subject of a future Blog post about motivation and how novice and/or uneducated trainers often resort to only manipulating the obvious motivational elements rather than considering the extremely important antecedents.

The lesson here is to be systematic in your approach to training your bird. Write down the ABC for the behavior you are trying to train and also keep careful notes about each training session. I recommend running a video camera for all your training sessions. You will find that you will see your own mistakes and miscues when you watch the video; it is an invaluable self-training tool. Plus, I find it very useful to look back to where each bird started. It is often quite surprising how far they (and the trainer) travel on the journey of learning!

Tomorrow I leave for the IAATE board meeting and annual conference in Holland so there will be a longer gap to the next Blog entry. Don’t forget to email you questions or queries about training to me so that I have some challenges when I return.

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Dr Susan Friedman, Sid Price, Training, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Positive good! … Negative bad!

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Positive good! … negative bad!

It is unfortunate that the words used to describe behavior in the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) are words that are very familiar to English speakers. I say unfortunate because some of these words are so familiar that they bring their own “emotive” baggage along with them.

For this article I will concentrate on four words; Positive, Negative, Reinforcement, and Punishment. These words are used in pairs to describe four different types of consequences that a trainer may apply after a behavior.

Let’s begin with Positive and Negative. When used in general language these words are often used to qualify something as good (positive) or bad (negative). A simple example would be having a positive attitude or a negative attitude. No problem understanding their use in that context. However in the context of ABA they have quite different meanings. Positive means that something was added to the environment and Negative means something was removed. There is no good or bad connotation implied. Hold on to that proposition while we deal with the other two words for a moment.

Reinforcement and Punishment are used to communicate the effect of the trainer’s action on the behavior that occurred immediately before the action. So, if the consequence an animal experiences right after a behavior increases the likelihood it will repeat the behavior then that consequence is Reinforcement. On the other hand if the consequence serves to reduce the behavior then it is Punishment. Now I can almost hear cries that one should never use punishment … remember I mentioned that some of these words come with baggage! Well Punishment is the grand-daddy of all of them for that. In general language punishment is loaded with emotive meaning and one of the challenges of understanding ABA and training is setting aside the preconceptions of this word. In an ABA context it simply means that the behavior is likely to decrease. For example; a parrot loves the company of its caregiver, when it screams for attention the caregiver leaves the room and that action reduces the screaming … that in ABA terms is punishment.

Let’s quickly review:

Positive – add something
Negative – remove something
Reinforcement – increase the likelihood behavior will be repeated
Punishment – decrease the likelihood behavior will be repeated

Now let’s put them together to build those often misunderstood ABA phrases.

Positive reinforcement – A consequence that adds something to the environment that will increase the likelihood the behavior will be repeated.
Negative reinforcement – A consequence that removes something from the environment that will increase the likelihood the behavior will be repeated.
Positive punishment – A consequence that adds something to the environment that will decrease the likelihood the behavior will be repeated.
Negative punishment – A consequence that removes something from the environment that will decrease the likelihood the behavior will be repeated.

Now that you have the basic terms down I recommend reading the article “The Facts about Punishment” by Dr Susan Friedman. In this article you will find some excellent information about punishment and also information about the downside of this all-too-often “go-to” strategy.

Finally don’t forget that if you have a question about what you read either here or in the referenced article send email to me at The Training Blog.

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Dr Susan Friedman, Sid Price, Training, Uncategorized | No Comments »