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Reinforcing and Punishing Consequences

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

In an earlier article I wrote about the basics of Applied Behavior Analysis so I don’t propose to cover them again here. What I would like to talk about is how one identifies a consequence as either a reinforcer or a punisher.

First, remember that in order to really affect a behavior the stimulus delivered or removed must be both contingent upon and contiguous with the behavior. Contingency is the if/then relationship of behavior and consequence. If the bird does this (behavior) then this (stimulus) is delivered/removed. Contiguity describes the tight relationship in time between the behavior and the contingent consequence. The closer in time these two events the stronger the effect of the consequence (stimulus) on the future behavior.

The labeling of a stimulus as a reinforcer or punisher is contingent upon the effect that the stimulus has upon the behavior. Since to date we have no method of knowing what an animal thinks we must rely upon observing the effect of the stimulus on the behavior, then and only then do we know whether the stimulus presented (+) or removed (-) is a reinforcer (R) or punisher (P).

Therefore one can not discuss if a consequence is R+, R-, P+, or P- without FIRST defining the behavior. This is why one must operationalize (write down the ABC) the behavior, then we can identify clearly the nature of the stimulus.

This was demonstrated in the last few days with an online discussion of the use of jesses with raptors. Jesses are the leather straps attached to the legs of raptors to restrict their movement. One writer identified the strategy as punishment, the other as reinforcement. How can that be? As I wrote above these consequences do not exist in isolation from the behavior and if we operationalize the behavior we can see that BOTH writers were to some degree correct. Assuming that the hawk is standing on the gloved hand and something occurs that startles the bird.

1A. To be deterinined

1B. Hawk flies from the gloved hand

1C. The leash and jesses become taut

Probable Future Behavior (PFB) The hawk will fly less often from the gloved hand.

Thus we have punishment (the likelihood of the hawk flying from the gloved hand is reduced) and the stimulus was added (the taut equipment placing restraint on the legs), therefore with THIS behavior we have a Positive Punishment (P+) strategy.

2A. The leash and jesses become taut

2B. Hawk returns to gloved hand

2C. The leash and jesses become slack

Probable Future Behavior (PFB) The hawk will remain on the gloved hand more often.

Thus we have reinforcement (increased staying on the gloved hand) and the stimulus was a removal (the leash and jesses become slack and restraint is taken off legs), with THIS behavior we have a Negative Reinforcement strategy (R-).

From this example we can hopefully see that before one can know what the strategy being used is one must start by identifying the behavior. Are we talking about reducing the likelihood of flying from the gloved hand (punishment) or are we talking about increasing the bird remaining on the gloved hand (reinforcement).

This example also demonstrates that in order for our negative reinforcement strategy to work an aversive (restraint) had to be present as an antecedent. This need for an aversive in this situation should lead us to seek a different strategy for training the bird to remain on the gloved hand. The preferred approach would be to heavily reinforce the hawk for standing calmly on the gloved hand and, in a controlled environment, not to be holding the restraints, but to allow the bird to move freely off the hand to a nearby perch when it so chooses. When it returns to the hand it is once again reinforced.

It is worth noting that the original discussion was not really about initial training but the continued use of jesses for restraint. When working with raptors in public situations it is a matter of public safety to have this level of control of the bird, regardless of the training level. The best a trainer can do is to build a strong history of reinforcement on the gloved hand with the bird to minimize attempts to fly away. However, again in the interests of public safety, it is necessary to have the backup restraint of the equipment available.

In summary, talking about consequences in isolation from the behavior they are contingent upon has no meaning. The important word here is “contingent” and in order to be contingent there must be a specific behavior that is being discussed. Simply by operationalizing the behavior as was done above will reveal the nature of the consequence.

Please don’t forget, if you have a training question or comment please write to href="TrainingBlogavianambassadorscom">TrainingBlogavianambassadors dot com and if appropriate for an article I will try to address your questions and comments.

Sid.

Posted in punishment, raptors, Reinforcement, Sid Price, Training | No Comments »

A blog follow-up

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

In my last article I wrote about the marketing practices used by Bird Tricks when selling their products. That article, not surprisingly, has been the most widely read article for some time with links and emailed supportive comments still flowing in on a daily basis. Shortly after the article was posted I received an email from Jason Macek of Bird Tricks complaining about the article. After many emails back and forth I committed to a follow up article. This is that article.

After several email exchanges I was informed by Jason that the two sites I had seen and criticized in my article were owned by two of the Bird Tricks affiliates and not by Bird Tricks or perhaps more specifically not owned by Womach Brother Productions. Since the owners of those sites were not available (because they registered their domains by proxy which hides their identity) Jason agreed to contact them, and on one of the sites the specific video I had given as an example of this unacceptable practice of copyright infringement was removed. There have been no other changes to that site or the other site; they both continue the same practices as before.

Through-out my conversation with Jason I tried to convince him that the actions of their affiliates in the process of selling Bird Tricks products were the responsibility of Bird Tricks. He did not and does not agree. He said on several occasions that Bird Tricks has no control of how their affiliates operate and did not accept that the actions of these affiliates reflects directly upon the perception of Bird Tricks and the way it chooses to do business. Further he did not agree with my repeated suggestion that Bird Tricks has the ultimate control of their affiliates by simply terminating them. I will leave the reader to reflect on what this says about Bird Tricks business philosophy.

Eventually it became apparent to me that our conversation was becoming circular. I have nothing further to add in terms of comments other than should Bird Tricks decide to become an open, transparent business, and require their affiliates operate in a similar manner I will be happy to report that change of direction in my blog.

Sid.

Posted in Ethics, Sid Price | No Comments »

Bird Tricks to Avoid

Friday, December 12th, 2008

In doing research online about bird training the visibility of several web sites seems to have rocketed over the last few weeks. Because I like to stay aware of who is doing, saying, and selling what into the companion bird community I often follow these links. What I found increasingly interesting was that many, in fact the majority, of search results led in one or two clicks to the same products, those sold by Bird Tricks. A company that promotes some of the poor training strategies that were the subject of my guest blog on the Best of Flock Parrot Blog last week. To be honest that wasn’t surprising to me, as I have said before I consider them company to be Internet marketing specialists and not bird trainers, so of course they should excel in their field of expertise. What did surprise me however was a more recent development in their marketing strategy.

As a part of my research on Bird Tricks marketing strategies I discovered that Womach Productions the owners of the Bird Tricks web site has in fact some 70+ Internet domain names (Internet locations) registered. This one fact alone explains in part how they have raised their Internet visibility. Now there is nothing wrong with this strategy; for anyone whose primary goal is a money making scheme using the Internet it is a great idea. The actual number of domain names registered to Womach Productions may well be even higher because as I researched various web sites I found a new trend, hiding access to the data records of who actually owns the site.

In the past this data has been openly available to anyone to access, one simply uses a free tool called “WhoIs”. Indeed if you go to Google and type “WhoIs AvianAmbassadors.com” you will find the full data record available. It is my philosophy that “transparency”, the openness that reveals who owns what, is the ethical way to do business. As I have written in the past, do not trust information from “ducklover488”, if they hide their true identity how can you trust what they say. Not only is our own domain name data openly and freely available but also those of you who receive email about this blog or our Safari newsletter will notice at the bottom of each email there is full contact information. This is a requirement of the mailing company we use (Vertical Response) and one of the reasons we chose to use them. Once again it is the ethical way of doing business as far as I am concerned. Now, I do not know for sure that the hidden domain name records are owned by Womach Productions, however I do know that clicking on almost any link on those anonymous sites leads to … Bird Tricks.

Now let me reveal the most disturbing and ethically questionable part of this whole development. Some of these web sites appear to be lists of links to valuable training resources and writings by some of the leading bird trainers and companion parrot advocates in the USA. Amongst them are Barbara Heidenreich, Steve Martin, Dr Susan Friedman, and many others including me. What is ironic is that my article critical of training stategies on the Best of Flock Parrot Blog was referenced! The articles themselves are not available on the web sites, nor are links back to the sources. However if you are searching for these valuable articles you will probably arrive at one of these valueless web sites, just a click away from … Bird Tricks! Now that really is a trick isn’t it?

From my perspective the use of my name, intellectual property, and reputation to drive traffic to these sites is completely unethical. I do not and will not support, recommend, or promote Bird Tricks or their products. In the past my approach has been to not mention them because that raises their Internet profile. However, from now on I will be actively mentioning them as I encourage each and every one of you to tell your friends to avoid Bird Tricks and their products. We can use the power of the Internet to protect the intellectual property of those professionals in the bird training world who are motivated to help you and your birds rather than line their own bank accounts using ethically questionable tactics.

This latest development once again highlights a subject that I have written about before, and that is separating the noise from the information on the Internet. Once again the golden rule of information validation is the one that should be applied … if the source of the claims made or the identity of the source is hidden then one should always question the information provided. Openness and transparency will always help in deciding what is worth pursuing and what is not.

Knowledge is power; so with your new knowledge of the strategies employed by Womach Productions and Bird Tricks you can decide for yourself if you wish to trust the valuable relationship between you and your birds to them and their products.

Finally, I encourage everyone to spread the word by sending a link to this blog to all of your friends and colleagues. Peer to peer, friend to friend, one link at a time we can keep the spotlight on these questionable tactics and hopefully reduce the reward that I am sure they get for their efforts. As people who understand the science of behavior we know that behaviors that are not reinforced will eventually go away … now wouldn’t that be an ironic turn of events, the science they obfuscate and ignore being their downfall!

Sid.

Posted in Articles, Dr Susan Friedman, Ethics, GoodBird Magazine, Sid Price, Steve Martin, Training | No Comments »

Finding gems in the sea of information

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

Each day I receive email notifications of activity on the Internet that relate to birds and bird training. It is quite surprising how much information there is out there and how much more is being written every day. Now, you might think that this is a great thing that must be raising the bar in terms of the health and well-being of companion birds. However the truth is that as the volume of information grows so does the problem of separating the good information from the not-so-good.
In the scientific community there is a process called peer-review that is designed to filter the information; it allows new ideas and hypotheses to be reviewed and commented on by other experts in the field. Unfortunately there is no similar process filtering the flow of information onto the Internet. This means that anyone who wants can create an account at blogger.com and start posting their care and training ideas for anyone to read.
So, how can someone searching for help with their companion bird select the most accurate information from this sea of articles and videos? There a few simple rules that one can apply that may help.
First I suggest that you check the profile or biography of the person writing a blog. Many blogs are written anonymously, if the only name given is a nickname like “birdlover32” or “admin” I am immediately suspicious. If the writer is being secretive about who they are can we really trust what they are writing?
Second, is there any third-party support for what they are writing? Does the writer acknowledge where they found the information they are presenting? Sometimes there is unique information that a writer may have gained from their own personal experience, however, it is highly unlikely that anyone writing about bird care or training is presenting information that 100% original and of their own creation. Be especially suspicious if the blog is anonymous and there are no references to third party support for the statements made. Even when sources are quoted search for the quoted material and read that too, many times a writer will “cherry-pick” just what supports their information from a much larger article, one that contains the full story.
Third, look for a second or even a third writer who is presenting the same or similar ideas. Apply the first two rules above to those writers as well. If you find the information being presented in multiple articles by writers who tell you who they are and what their experience is, plus they references their information sources then you are now getting close to finding good information.
The golden rule is to always have a healthy distrust of anything you read on the Internet until you have done your own research or at least asked a trusted source for their opinion on the material.
The Internet is a valuable resource; these days rather than ordering piles of books on various subjects I find myself staring at a Google page more and more often. Using Google and doing research are skills that each of us needs to develop if we are to find the gems of information that are being published for “free.” I placed the word free in quotation marks because this information is not truly free; it requires each of us to invest a large amount of time finding the good information.
Sid.

Posted in Articles, Sid Price, Training | No Comments »

Clear and Accurate Communication … Training Tenet

Monday, July 21st, 2008

I received an email from someone who had just read an article written by one of the people for whom I have great respect, Karen Pryor. The reason the person wrote to the bird training blog was to ask if they were correct in their reading of the article; stating that it was confusing in its use of some very important Operant Conditioning (OC) terminology. The article is available online at http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1469.

The article sets out to answer the question:

“Can you teach everything without punishment? By punishment I mean “correction” which I translated to “punishment” in my question …”

When I read this article I have to admit that I was very disappointed in what I read. Here was an article from someone, as I said earlier, that I really respect. Karen Pryor has brought so much to not only pet owners but also to zookeepers around the world with her writings about training and in particular Clicker Training. Her book “Don’t Shoot the Dog” is in my opinion required reading for anyone who works with or owns animals. This article however is so misleading in its use and definition of what is a well defined OC and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) term that it does nothing to educate the reader and gives a wrong answer the original question posed.

Let’s be clear here, if this article were not written by a well respected trainer it probably wouldn’t matter too much, it would be just another online writer misunderstanding and misstating the science.

Here is the scientific definition of “punishment”:

Stimuli that serve to reduce the likelihood that the behavior immediately preceding it will be repeated in the future.

Now let’s take a look at the definition from the article:

On the other hand, a punishment is something aversive that you do on purpose.

As you can see this is absolutely not what punishment is at all.

The article goes on to say:

But, a punishment does NOT have a predictable effect on the future.

Once again this is completely wrong. From our definition of punishment we know that it has a very well defined effect upon future behavior. Further more, if the stimulus, i.e. the so-called punishment, does not reduce the likelihood a behavior will be repeated then by definition it is not a punisher. Punishers or reinforcers only get to be called those things if they have the defined effect upon the behavior preceding them. Plus, their effect is always judged by the behavior of the subject.

So, why is this so important and why does it disappoint me so much? It comes down to one of the tenets of good training and that is good communication. One of the biggest problems experienced by folks that are new to training is the rather arcane words that are used to describe the process. Several of the well defined terms of OC and ABA come to the science with a long history and emotive meanings. “Punishment” is a prime example; because of its long use in a social rather than scientific context it brings many assumptions to the mind of the reader. It is therefore important that whenever a trainer describes a training process or a technique that they take extreme care to not only define these terms but use them exactly and accurately, in this way the trainer clearly communicates the process and understanding to whoever is reading the article. Consistent and accurate communication is not only required of trainer to subject, it also required of trainer to trainer, and trainer to student. With careless and incorrect use of terms in an article that purports to be a training article comes just more confusion. This was demonstrated by the person who wrote to me asking about this mentioning that the article had been promoted in a discussion group as a “very good” article that would clarify what aversives and punishment are. In fact it does quite the opposite.

In order to be a good educator one really needs to follow the tenet of clear and accurate communication. The science of OC and ABA are still in their “formative” years in the context of the greater public. It is the responsibility of those of us to work to raise public awareness of this science to serve it well by being diligent and careful when we write or speak about it. Using and defining its terminology in a careless and inaccurate way will only serve to further confuse our audience and will certainly not serve our goals of raising awareness and use of these powerful training techniques.

Read this archived article for an overview of the terminolgy, also Dr. Susan Friedman made a similar appeal for clear communication in her Goodbird magazine (Vol 2-1) article “Terminology Tumult: Coming to Terms with Terms”.

Sid.

Posted in Articles, GoodBird Magazine, Questions, Sid Price, Training | No Comments »