The Final Post

I really enjoyed training Muffin. It was a very fun experience that I had never tried before. I liked rewarding Muffin when I was shaping her and seeing her progress throughout the training sessions. I hated putting her on extinction because I felt so bad for her when she would press the bar and look for food and get frustrated about it. I was really surprised at how quickly she learned once I started training her more than once a day. She improved so fast like when she she pressed the bar 104 times and 7 hours later she pressed the bar 236 times! I didn't really come into this learning experience with any opinions, I was just excited to see what would happen. In the future I will definitely set a specific schedule for me to follow so that I don't fall behind and have to rush at the end.

Sniffy vs. Muffin

Sniffy

Training Sniffy and training Muffin was very different. When magazine training Sniffy I had a helpful bar graph that let me know when he was associating the sound of the magazine to receiving food and if when I was reinforcing him, if it was helpful or not.  It took Muffin 30 minutes for 5 days to fully shape her and I could never be sure if I was reinforcing her good enough, while Sniffy took only 30 minutes in one night for him to be completely shaped. Also Sniffy never got tired or satiated so he could be trained for hours or I could isolate him and speed up the time so it only took 1 or 2 minutes to get him to master a VR schedule. The positive side to using Sniffy was when I was magazine training him the program let me know when my reinforcement was actually reinforcing or if I was reacting to slow. I would recommend using Sniffy, but only for teaching magazine or shaping. The other schedules did not really help me learn anything. 

Sniffy's Cumulative Record for VR 5

Sniffy's helpful Operant Assoications Box

Muffin's Cumulative Record for FR 5

Extinction

Muffin was not very excited about extinction, especially since she worked so hard to get to FR 7.  She started by pressing the bar and looking in the food magazine for her reward and when she did not find one she returned to the bar and pressed faster and harder, yet still no sugar pellets. As you can see in the video above Muffin then became frustrated and began to bite the bar and twist, trying anything to get the sugar pellet. She showed examples of extinction bursts when she pressed the bar harder and faster and would bite it and she showed spontaneous recovery when she entered the operant box the second time and started pressing the bar again. 

You can see the extinction bursts on Day 1 where she went from pressing the bar 0 times to 33 times
You can also see Muffin's extinction burst on Day 2 when she went from 10 bar presses to 29

Weight Chart

Date	Weight	Food (grams)
9/12/12	242	3.3
9/13/12	226	3.9
9/14/12	224	3.0
9/15/12	221	3.1
9/16/12	212	5.2
9/17/12	213	4.1
9/18/12	208	6.8
9/19/12	208	4.7
9/20/12	204	7.1
9/21/12	212	4.8
9/22/12	210	16.0
9/23/12	214	6.0
9/24/12	211	6.6
9/25/12	213	6.3
9/26/12	209	7.1
9/27/12	214	5.7
9/28/12	206	7.7
9/29/12	213	7.5
9/30/12	206	8.5
10/1/12	207	8.2
10/2/12	209	8.5
10/3/12	207	9.8
10/4/12	203	11.7
10/5/12	215	8.7
10/6/12	212	9.4
10/7/12	209	11.2
10/8/12	221	7.8
10/9/12	227	7.1
10/10/12	223	4.9

Muffin's target was 210 grams, which she did reach, but as time went on I kept her above her target weight to keep her motivated and have enough energy to proceed.

Graph of Average Responses

Shaping was per day, FR 1 was in one day, FR 2 was the average for 2 times, FR 3 and 5 are for one time and FR 7 was the average for 2 times.

Challenges

The main challenges I faced were only due to myself. My first challenge was getting Muffin shaped and the reason it took so long was because instead of training her consecutively, I trained randomly ranging from 5 days apart to 2 days apart and then 1 day apart. I’m positive that if I would have trained her back to back at least 5 days in a row she could have mastered shaping very quickly. I also failed to note when the deadline was for getting Muffin on an extinction schedule which resulted in the FR schedules being done in only two days. In the future I will be sure to mark down the deadline and set up a clear schedule for myself so that I will not have to rush again. 

FR Schedule

Muffin on FR 3

Muffin reached up to an FR7 within two days. I trained Muffin 3 times in one day moving from an FR1 to an FR2. First she started on an FR 1 and pressed the bar 98 times. Three hours later I moved her up to an FR 2 where she pressed the bar 104 times. Then 7 hours later she attempted the FR 2 a second time to make sure she fully mastered this schedule and she showed she had mastered it by pressing the bar 236 times. The next day I moved Muffin up to an FR 3 where she pressed the bar 159 times. Four hours later I moved her up to an FR 5 where she pressed the bar 160 times. Three hours later I moved her up to an FR 7 and she pressed the bar 234 times. I wasn’t sure if she was ready to move up to an FR 9 so 4 hours later she reattempted the FR 7 schedule where she pressed the bar 538 times. This was the end of Muffin’s Fr schedule and the next day she began extinction. These two days where I trained Muffin pretty rigorously I did feed her once in the morning after her first training session and once at night when the sessions were through. I wanted to reward her a little extra because she was being trained so much throughout the day and I did not want her to lose motivation. 

Muffin on FR 7

Shaping

Shaping Day 1

I began shaping Muffin by reinforcing her every time she was in the same corner as the lever and the food magazine. This took some getting use to, but by the end of the session she began to associate the corner with being reinforced with the sugar pellets. She was very interested in the light above the lever and stood on the lever resulting in two lever presses, which I rewarded her with extra pellets. This session lasted 20 minutes and Muffin was reinforced 146 times. I ended the session early because she seemed to lose interest.

(Sorry it's sideways!)

Shaping Day 2

Instead of reinforcing Muffin for being in the corner near the lever, I started reinforcing for every sniff or touch of the bar. She quickly caught on and as soon as her nose touched the bar she immediately looked in the food magazine anticipating her reward. This session lasted 25 minutes. I thought we should end on a good note since she caught on so quickly to the bar sniffs and touches. She pressed the bar 4 times and she was reinforced 151 times for her sniffs and touches.

Shaping Day 3

On this day Muffin was reinforced for only touching the bar and not for sniffing the bar. This took some time because every time she sniffed the bar she would look in the food magazine for a reinforcement. She started to get frustrated and try other things such as biting the bar. I wanted to move in baby steps so she was reinforced whenever she bit the bar, stood on it, or touched it. This resulted in her pressing the bar 32 times and was reinforced 42 times throughout the session. It lasted 26 minutes until she was satiated and no longer went near the bar.

Shaping Day 4

This was Muffin’s big day. My goal was to see if she was ready to get started on a FR schedule and not have to press my hand switch, but let her press the bar to get reinforcement. After she was in the operant box for a minute she did not go near the bar, so I pressed the hand switch to get her attention. She soon began to press the lever, about 10 times, until she seemed uninterested again. I was worried that maybe she maybe satiated so I pressed the hand switch again and she went back to pressing the bar. This behavior happened sever times so it was decided that Muffin was not ready for a FR schedule. This session lasted the full 30 minutes and was reinforced by me 8 times while she pressed the bar 57 times.

Shaping Day 5

Once again I wanted to see if Muffin was ready for a FR schedule. This time she proved to me she was definitely ready. There was no need for me to press the hand switch. As soon as Muffin jumped into her operant box she began pressing the bar on her own and after 22 minutes she had pressed the bar 102 times. I decided to end on a good note and start with her FR schedule the next day.

Magazine Training

My first goal with Muffin was to magazine train her, to get her used to the operant box and associate that when the light in the box goes off she will receive food, and when she hears the noise after pressing the bar hard enough she will receive food. 
Muffin was food deprived to approximately 85% of her starting body weight. Her original body weight was 242 grams, my goal was to get her down to 210 grams. I know that sounds a little harsh, but Dr. Trench assured us this was a natural process that wild rats will go through at some point in their life and that this is not hurting her. It only took four days for Muffin to go from 242 grams to 212 grams (I wish I could lose weight like that!)
I began magazine training Muffin on September 19, 2011 with my professor Dr. Trench. The first day Muffin was in the operant box, she was not amused, to say the least. Although she was food deprived for eight days she did not seem interested when I rewarded her with sugar pellets. I pressed the hand switch to show her that when the light in the box turns off she would receive sugar pellets as a reward. There was also a noise from the dispenser that sounded when I pressed the hand switch. Muffin still seemed more interested in smelling the box and grooming herself rather than eat the sugar pellets. Dr. Trench and I magazine trained Muffin for 30 minutes and saw that she left quite a few pellets left in the food magazine. We decided to give her a break and try again on my own another day to see if she would become more interested.
Two days later I resumed Muffin's magazine training. She was much more alert and would eat the sugar pellets when I pressed the hand switch. 

This is Muffin! She was so excited to say "Hi" and get started for her first day of training :)