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00:00:00 – 00:09:08
The video, presented by Michael Corayer, delves into advanced principles of operant conditioning focusing on chaining, shaping, and the concept of instinctive drift. Chaining is described as a method of teaching complex behaviors by linking together multiple simpler behaviors in a sequence, which is exemplified by conditioning animals like pigeons and chickens. Shaping, on the other hand, involves reinforcing incremental steps toward a desired behavior, illustrated with examples of pigeons playing ping pong and rats playing basketball. However, the video also acknowledges the limitations of conditioning due to biological instincts, as explored by animal trainers Keller and Marian Breland. The Brelands' concept of "instinctive drift" emphasizes that innate behaviors often interfere with conditioned responses, a phenomenon they documented in their research paper "The Misbehavior of Organisms." Overall, the video underscores the potential and limitations of operant conditioning techniques in behavior training.
00:00:00
In this part of the video, Michael Corayer introduces the concept of chaining within operant conditioning to teach more complex behaviors. Chaining involves linking multiple simple behaviors together, where reinforcement is only given after a sequence of behaviors has been performed. He explains how a pigeon can be conditioned to press a lever and peck a disc in sequence to receive a reward. This method can be expanded to even more complex tasks by adding more behaviors to the chain. Corayer provides an example of a chicken completing an obstacle course through chaining. He concludes by noting that to teach even more complex behaviors, another technique is needed.
00:03:00
In this part of the video, the concept of “shaping” in behavior conditioning is explained. Shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations of a desired behavior until the complete behavior is achieved. For example, to teach pigeons to play ping pong, the pigeons are gradually rewarded for behaviors that increasingly resemble playing ping pong, such as approaching, touching, and then pushing the ball. Similarly, rats can be trained to play basketball by progressively rewarding them for actions that lead up to placing the ball in the hoop. It is noted that while shaping can produce complex behaviors, there are limitations to what behaviors can be conditioned, as demonstrated by Keller and Marian Breland.
00:06:00
In this segment, the Brelands, animal trainers, struggled to teach certain behaviors due to a phenomenon they identified as instinctive drift. They attempted to condition raccoons to deposit coins into a piggy bank, but the raccoons treated the coins like food, rubbing and cleaning them. Similarly, they faced issues conditioning pigs to push coins, as the pigs started rooting the coins into the ground, akin to food-searching behavior. This instinctive drift occurs when a conditioned behavior is too close to an instinctual one, causing the instinct to override the conditioning. The Brelands’ observations highlight that biological instincts can limit the effectiveness of conditioning. They documented these findings in their paper “The Misbehavior of Organisms.”