Next time you set a mousetrap... by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Next time you set a mousetrap...

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Friday, August 2, 2013 02:36
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VIEWED: 1124
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Thursday, August 1, 2013 9:36 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

...remember this:

Ah-HAH! I got it to work! If it doesn't work, hit "reply with quote" then cut and paste the URL.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 1:20 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

(ETA: Posted this because I COULDN'T get the link to work here, but I fixed it, so now I'm stuck with an unnecessary "reply".... #$@#$&) computers...)

Check it out, it's really amazingly fun to watch--nothing bad, all good--but you have to cut and paste the URL and take out the spaces for it to work.

It's about "clicker training", something many of us dog folk are into and something which is pretty astonishing.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 1:25 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

The 'share' option below the vid has a link which seems to work. FYI

Cool vid!

I get the reinforcement part, but how in the world do you get them to do the trick properly, in the first place ? Man, that's gotta take up some time for trial and error.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 1:27 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Yeah, I finally backtracked it to her site (which has MUCH more!) and got a working link (hence all the edited comments). Whaddya think? I LOVE clicker training, you wouldn't believe some of the things they've done!

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 2:50 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Actually, no, it's kind of frighteningly fast how clicker training works. Had an urban musher friend who's reeeeely into it, she sent me links, a book, videos, etc., and I researched it enough to be shocked out of my GOURD by some of what they accomplish, at an amazingly fast speed.

They can even cure all the things Cesar Milan deals with, WITHOUT his "alpha" approach (and the hard-core ones are vehemently anti-Cesar, not safe to even mention his name... ;o) ). In hard-core cases it takes longer, but no longer than what Cesar does, and with more permanent, healthier results. If you check her site, this woman breaks down a few of the routines and shows you how she trains it. All I can tell you is I tried it, and it works...it works scary! I haven't had the "oomph" to follow up on it, but that's my own fault.

"Clicker training" (it goes by other names, that's kind of a misnomer) works with humans too; faster, better and more permanently than other forms of training (athletes, musicians and others). It bypasses the conscious mind and works on a more instinctual level...it's freaky stuff.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 3:01 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

Humans have a unique relationship with dogs that goes back 1000's of years. Unlike what humans have w/ mice. I think we've gone over this here, with someone posting a video on that very issue. Dogs seem to 'sense' what humans are thinking, as I recall was one opinion. So it makes sense that dogs would learn really fast when dealing with people and commands.

Still, doesn't make it less cool.

Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen

Resident USA Freedom Fundie

" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 3:33 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

I've asked my urban-mushing friend if she still has the links she sent me on an aquatic park in Hawaii that did some of the most amazing things with dolphins. Yes, we know they're smart, but they don't have that thousands-of-years' connection with humans, and what they did with clicker training there is really fascinating. If she sends it, I'll post something.

It literally works with ALL species...there's some pretty stunning stuff they've done with fish as well, which are neither smart nor connected to humans. I think you'd get a kick out of it.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 4:02 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

I don't think anybody ever claimed that the little rodent bastards weren't SMART, it's one of the things that makes the sons of bitches hard to kill when they're carrying diseases around or contaminating food products.

I used to work in the food production industry, one of many fields I've been in, and they were a constant problem.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 4:12 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Ah-HAH! I found it on my own. It's Karen Pryor, who is at the forefront of "operant conditioning", of which positive reinforcement and clicker training are aspects. She was involved with Sea Life Park in Hawaii from the very beginning--it's not like other "aquatic amusement parks" insofar as they have somewhat of a different attitude and they've worked with marine mammal species with which nobody else has had any luck. She went on to work with dogs and that's her core, but what she started doing at Sea Life was amazing enough.

Her book "Reaching the Animal Mind", covers tons of stuff, but one tiny piece is enough...it's a VERY OLD video of a scientific study done at Sea Life Park--and yes, it was connected to Naval Weapons; back then pretty much the only work being funded in that area was through the military. It's at http://www.reachingtheanimalmind.com/chapter_05.html...under "videos", click on "creative porpoise experiment"...it's 15 minutes long, but if you're not mesmerized by the time you get through, I'll eat my hat. There are things about the experiment, and other aspects, with which I am not in agreement, but the scientific bases behind operant conditioning training, and especially clicker training, are fascinating. The video touched on the fact that it ENCOURAGES critters/humans to be imaginative, to come up with stuff on their own.

There are videos all throughout that site on her book, and if you wander around, you can see that literally ANY species can be trained. You want a giggle, check out "Fainting Fish" at http://www.reachingtheanimalmind.com/chapter_04.html. She didn't know anything about fish, and got quite a shock when she tried operant conditioning on an Oscar and he didn't get his reward fast enough.

I will stop now; Pryor delved into the "whys" in depth over time, for her own edification, and tracked down psychologists and sociologists and scientists who finally gave her scientific answers to why it works so amazingly, but I'll leave it at this.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 6:01 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

I remember a lecture about this when I took Psych 101 in college more than half a lifetime ago. They trained pigeons to do Quality Control work in a pharmaceutical plant. 100 % inspection-- every single pill, millions of 'em every day, rolled down conveyors in front of pigeons in glass fronted boxes. If the pill was the right size and shape, the bird pecked one button, the pill passed, bird got a little treat. If the pill was deformed some way, the pidge pecked the other button, the pill went to the reject conveyor, bird got a treat. The birds were way over 99.99 % accurate, on millions of pills a day.

The project was scrapped in the end, because of perceived hygiene issues. "Live birds that close to pills people take? Yuck."

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 6:04 PM

OONJERAH

Spock: Fascinating.

So ... we're next, eh?

======================
A man's gotta know what Clicks.

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Thursday, August 1, 2013 9:48 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Interesting, the connect four set reminded me of Saberhagens initial foray into his Berserker series, a short story titled (depending on volume) Fortress Ship/Without a Thought, revolving around a human "teaching" a simian to "learn" a game sufficiently to fool an advanced, alien intelligence.

Animals are way "smarter" than humans think, it's just that we tend to foolishly judge their behavior via anthropomorphicism and in human terms, but they're not humans - and it also gives pause to brain size and structure as mattering so much cause a Crow or a Portia spider might not have all that much to work with, but they make damn good use of what they have.

That said, I'd make a damn good cat.

-Frem

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Friday, August 2, 2013 2:36 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Oonj, we're not "next", it's been in practice with trainers for quite some time now--mostly athletes, musicians, dancers, etc., where getting the brain by bypassing the conscious level is most efficient. The book's site is down at the moment, or I'd give specifics.

One of the neatest things about it, to me, is how it instigates animals to come up with their own "tricks"; I found it fascinating that animals would have the imagination to try and come up with new ideas on their own. There's a scientific basis for that, she finally ferreted it out, but again, the site is down. Pfffft.

ETA: Okay, site's back up. There's a chapter on the use of operant conditioning with humans at http://reachingtheanimalmind.com/chapter_11.html . Children (who pick things up better instinctively than adults to begin with) and gymnasts (where the body responds really well by bypassing the conscious) benefit particularly.

Wish I could find where she finally found a scientist who answered WHY it works so well, has to do with something they call "SEEK", but I'm not willing to search further. It's in the book itself, which I found a really interesting read when it was loaned to me, but not mentioned in the material on the website.

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