Extinction Day 1:
Date: 10/7/13
Start Time: 1:54
End Time: 2:24
Session Duration: 30:00
Number of Bar Presses:
129
Number of Rewards: 0
Snickerpuss’ Weight:
211
Extinction Day 2:
Date: 10/8/13
Start Time: 1:59
End Time: 2:09
Session Duration: 30:00
Number of Bar Presses:
40
Number of Rewards: 0
Snickerpuss’ Weight:
211
Goal:
Our
goal was to extinct the behavior of bar pressing that we had previously taught
Snickerpuss. During extinction no rewards were given for lever presses. We
would consider Nicky to have successfully extinct the behavior of bar pressing
when she pressed the bar less than 50 times during a 30 minute training
session.
Procedure:
Extinction Day
1:
Nicky
weighed 211 grams, which is two grams above her target weight, on the day of
training. For the thirteenth day of training, we put Nicky on extinction, which
would not reward Nicky for any lever presses.
Extinction Day
2:
Nicky
weighed 211 grams, which is two grams above her target weight, on the day of
training. For the fourteenth day of training, we again put Nicky on extinction
again, which would not reward her for any lever presses
Results:
Extinction Day
1:
Nicky
pressed the lever 129 times during our 30 minute training session, resulting in
0 rewards. We did not consider Nicky’s behavior to be extinct because she
responded at a rate much higher than we set for our goal for the 30 minute
session. Therefore we decided to repeat extinction again to see if a second day
of training would increase response rate.
Number of responses per 5 minute increments for Extinction Day 1
Time
|
Bar Presses
|
0-5
|
13
|
6-10
|
14
|
11-15
|
26
|
16-20
|
12
|
21-25
|
40
|
26-30
|
24
|
Extinction Day
2:
Nicky
pressed the lever 40 times during our 30 minute training session, resulting in
0 rewards. Nicky pressed the lever 89 times less than during yesterday’s extinction
session, indicating that the process of extinction was working. Since Nicky
pressed the lever less than 50 times during the 30 minute session, we
considered extinction to be successful.
Number
of responses per 5 minute increments for Extinction Day 2
Time
|
Bar Presses
|
0-5
|
0
|
6-10
|
4
|
11-15
|
25
|
16-20
|
9
|
21-25
|
2
|
26-30
|
0
|
Discussion:
Exctincting
Snickerpuss’ learned behavior of bar pressing was a rather easy task for us.
Nicky has a history of giving up on lever pressing when she was not rewarded
quickly enough, as seen in her FR-10 training. On day 1 of extinction Nicky
displayed a lot of frustrated behavior (self-grooming and rearing up), however,
on the second day she showed less of this type of behavior. Day 1 had a
fluctuating rate of responding for each 5 minute period, with a small
extinction burst occurring between the 21st and 25th
minutes. Day 2 of extinction saw a rather constant low rate of responding with
0 responses in the first and last 5 minute increments and a small extinction
burst between the 11th and 15th minutes. We considered
extinction to be successful because Nicky responded only 40 times on the second
day of training. We were especially happy to see 0 responses during the last 5
minutes of extinction. Nicky’s lack of responding likely indicates that she has
learned no matter the number of bar presses, no rewards are coming, which was
exactly the goal of today’s session.
A video of Nicky during Extinction Day 1. Here she shows frustrated behavior such as biting the food hopper and repeatedly checking for food.
A video of Nicky during Extinction Day 2. Here she shows less frustrated behavior.
A video of Nicky during Extinction Day 1. Here she shows frustrated behavior such as biting the food hopper and repeatedly checking for food.
A video of Nicky during Extinction Day 2. Here she shows less frustrated behavior.
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