Training 101! For everyone's eyes Part 1

[liquidspoof]

Hi everybody!

My name is Cat, and I am the proud mother of three small parrots (a sun conure, a cockatiel, and a budgie). I am also a dolphin trainer by profession! I have perused the threads in this particular forum, and I have to say how impressed I am with how well everyone trains their parrots. Not only that, it is SO great to see people sharing their ideas and knowledge...because that is what training is about. And as we all know, training has infinite benefits for our animals (and people!).

I just wanted to share some terms and techniques we use as dolphin trainers that may help clarify things said on this site. For example, what really IS positive reinforcement? What is the premack principle? When do you use a jackpot? If you are interested in training, new to bird owning, or are a seasoned trainer who would like to add to this thread, please read on!!


First, let's talk about punishment and positive reinforcement.

Positive means "adding something" to the environment. It does NOT mean "good" or "bad". When you see "positive", think "add".

Negative means "removing something" from the environment. It does NOT mean "good" or "bad". When you see "negative", think "remove".

Positive reinforcement is ADDING something to the environment that increases the frequency of the behavior it follows Example? When your parrot turns around in a circle after you ask them to, you reward them with their favorite treat. You are ADDING the treat to their environment, which INCREASES the likelihood that they are going to spin in a circle the next time you ask them to!

Negative reinforcement is REMOVING something aversive (bad) from the environment that increases the frequency of the behavior it follows. Example? When you are in your car and you don't buckle your seatbelt, the car makes a really annoying (aversive!!) noise until you buckle your seatbelt. So, when you buckle your seatbelt (the desired behavior), the annoying beeping (aversive stimulus) stops! You are REWARDED for buckling your seatbelt by the beeping turning off.

How about a parrot example? Your bird as at the vet. They are incredibly nervous, but are very calm when they step up onto the vet's finger. You reward them for sitting on the vet's finger (the aversive!) but asking them to step up on you. Your parrot is more likely to be calm at the vet's office if they know they will be rewarded for good behavior by LEAVING what it is that scares them.

Positive punishment Adding something aversive to the environment that decreases the frequency of the behavior it follows. Example? When you were a little kid and you said a bad word, your mom put soap in your mouth. Yuck.

Positive punishment is NOT used in dolphin training, nor does it have much of a place in parrot training. The only time under which I would ever use positive punishment is if my life is in danger...and then it would only be used as defense. Since my parrots could not end my life, I never use positive punishment on them. Neither should you ;)

Negative punishment Removing something reinforcing from the environment to decrease the frequency of the behavior it follows. This is your classic "time out" example. Time outs ARE punishments, because you are REMOVING something your parrot, child, or dolphin wants. In the case of time outs, it's your attention.


Primary reinforcement is anything an animal needs to survive, like food and water. This includes treats! Usually, this is considered the strongest method of reinforcement, but if you give your parrots all of their staple food throughout the day, you may end up with parrots who arent' hungry for treats, so you'd use...

Secondary reinforcement, which is anything that the animals do NOT need to survive...and may actually need to LEARN to find reinforcing (but not always). This includes rubs, toys, attention, a bridge (we'll talk about that soon), etc. Your parrot may not be hungry for treats, but they may LOVE a head rub. Use that as your main method of rewarding!

With dolphin training, we use both primary and secondary reinforcement. Sometimes, we add new toys to the dolphins' environment, and because they've never seen it before, they're scared of it. We have to get them used to it (usually we do this by feeding them around it), and then they figure out, "Hey, I can play with this thing!" and in that instant, it becomes a reward! Where they may have been scared of a volleyball one day, they LOVE it the next, and I can use to that to positively reinforce desired behavior!

Okay, so that explains those terms. But how do you know when to use them?

Positive reinforcement is used about 90% of the time. It is a very, very effective method of shaping and maintaining behavior. However, it cannot be used all of the time. Why? Because behavior is more complicated than that. You are using your reinforcement to communicate to your animal. Sometimes, your animal or child does something dangerous to themselves or to you, and you need to communicate IMMEDIATELY to that animal/human that they cannot do that. In the case of a young child or an animal, you can't verbally explain why they cannot do the dangerous behavior...you have to use your reinforcement. Time-outs are great for that purpose...so you can see that punishment does have its place in training.

Some other training terms you can use:

Bridging stimulus, or "bridge" This is something that tells the animal "good job! rewards are coming". It is called a "bridge" because it bridges the gap in time between when the animal does the correct behavior, and when they receive their reward. For example, when a dolphin does a nice jump, I blow my whistle (the bridge) and that tells the dolphin, "Oh, wow, the jump I'm doing RIGHT NOW is right! All I have to do now is go back to Cat for fish or a rub or toy".

You DO NOT NEED a bridge to train any animal, but it sure helps! You can use anything as a bridge. You can say "good", use a clicker, a whistle, a tap on the animal's head, a flashlight flash...the possibilities are endless! The key is to make the animal understand: "When I hear the word 'good', that means I get a reward".

To do this, you need to pair the bridge you select (let's say the word "good") with something your parrot wants. Let's say your parrot goes crazy for apple pieces. Get several apple pieces ready. Walk up to your parrot and say "good" at the SAME TIME you are offering the apple pieces. Do this a few times, then start to delay when you give the apples. Say "good" first, and THEN offer the apple pieces. It won't take long before your parrot knows what "good" means!

Least Reinforcing Stimulus/Scenario, or LRS This was made popular in the marine mammal field in the 80s. The LRS is basically a neutral response of 3 to 5 seconds when the animal does something incorrectly or undesired. It is NOT a time out!!!!

Example? Your bird puffs up and refuses to step up on your finger. You give them a NEUTRAL response (you hold your facial expression, don't move or change your body language) for 3 seconds, and then decide what to do next. You usually want to try to ask for the same behavior again, but if you think it will be wildly unsuccessful, you ask for something you are sure your parrot can do.

The LRS communicates to the animal the following things:

1) "No, that wasn't right"
2) "But it's okay, because you're going to get the opportunity to get rewarded right after this."

The LRS does not mean NO alone! If your bird sits nicely during the LRS, you can reward them for that. The LRS communicates to your bird what he did wasn't right, but it also doesn't leave them frustrated.

Delta signal This is your standard "NO" answer. We do not use this in dolphin training, but it can be used in parrot training if you don't over use it. Using "no" or any delta signal can lead to aggression and frustration, so you need to be careful that you are not just leaving your training sessions on a delta signal.


Okay, so now you can communicate to your bird...but what about motivating them? How do you train new behaviors? What if something goes wrong?

Check out my Part 2 section (it's the first reply to this thread) for some answers!!

[liquidspoof]

PART 2

How do you MOTIVATE your bird to keep it up? Sure, feeding them and loving them are very motivating things, but we all know how bored parrots can get because they are very intelligent, perceptive beings. There are other ways you can motivate your parrots...and here are a few tips:


Premack principle This is using a behavior to REWARD good behavior. For example, one of the dolphins I work with LOVES to jump. Her name is Betty. She jumps all the time on her own, in training sessions...it's out of control. Obviously, she finds jumping very reinforcing. So, sometimes when Betty did a GREAT job learning a behavior that has been tough for her to learn, I will ask her to go on a jump. That is reinforcing a behavior WITH a behavior.

If your parrot loves to bob their head up and down, but is having a difficult time when you try to ask them to step up, you can use the premack prinicple in addition to food or attention rewards. Let's say your parrot steps up on your head a lot faster than he/she has before. Consider rewarding your parrot by asking them to do the head bob behavior!

The premack principle (when used correctly) can really build up confidence in your animal (or person!!). It puts into their heads, "See? If you can do this, you can do anything! Great job!"

Jackpot This is rewarding an animal for doing a behavior normally with a lot more reinforcement than you would normally give for that behavior.Contrary to popular belief, "jackpotting" does NOT indicate to the bird, "WOW, what a GREAT behavior that was!". It is called jackpotting because it is similar to you getting a jackpot at a slot machine. You sit at the slot machine just pulling the lever over and over and over again....until SUDDENLY and RANDOMLY, you get $50,000! Whoa! All that for pulling a lever! Now you REALLY want to pull that lever. You are WAY more motivated to pull it because MAYBE, just MAYBE, you'll get another ridiculous amount of money.

With a parrot example: You ask your parrot for a wave. You usually give them one or two pieces of food, or maybe you give them a little tickle on the head. Well, one day, ask your parrot for a wave. If they do the wave, give them all of their treats you allotted for that training session. You'll see your bird's excitement!

Magnitude of reinforcement This is giving a lot of reinforcement (more than normal) to a behavior that was EXCEPTIONAL. People get this one mixed up with JACKPOT a lot. Magnitude is simply rewarding your animal with more rewards for a really great behavior.

Example: You ask your parrot for a wave. He starts waving like he's never waved before. I mean, he's a good waver, but this one is just NUTS. It's fast, and he's been doing it for a long time. Wow! So what do you do? You give him six pieces of apple instead of the usual one or two. Talk about motivating!

You can use things other than food. When one of the dolphins I work with does a really great job, I not only magnitude her with a lot of food, I send her to other trainers to do other behaviors (premack!), and I bring out her favorite toys. I make it CLEAR to her that she did an exceptional job, and that she will benefit greatly for doing so.

Variability in reinforcement This is mixing up the amount and type of reinforcement given to your animal. You don't always want to give your parrot the same number of treats, or the same type of reward. That will get very boring, very fast. After your parrot understands that they are rewarded for desired behavior, you need to start coming up with ways of being different.

Here are some things we do with dolphins:

* Vary the number of fish given and dont' give fish for every behavior. We can just use our whistle, toys, rubs, another behavior, etc.
* Move around the habitats
* Have sessions where you literally just feed the dolphins and ask for no behaviors
* Play sessions...either just randomly seeing if the dolphins want to play, or doing a "session" where you have food and reward the dolphins just for having fun

You can do the same thing with your parrot. Not only does that increase their motivation, it builds your relationship with them because they see you as someone FUN.


What about training new behaviors? First, you need to come up with the behavior you want and think about how you want to train it. Second, you will want to consider coming up with a signal or Sd (stimulus discriminant) to teach the animal. For example, if you want your parrot to wave, you might make your Sd a wave. Whenever your bird sees YOU wave, they know that is the signal for THEM to wave.

You also want to set up criteria, which is what standards you want the behavior to have. Do you want your parrot to wave fast? Wave for ten seconds? Four seconds? Once you know what criteria the behavior has, you can begin to train your behavior. This makes it clear and consistent for your parrot because they will eventually know exactly what is expected of them, and you know when to reinforce the correct behavior because it has met the criteria you set for it!


There are several methods to training new behaviors:

Successive approximations This is a stairstep method of shaping a behavior towards the final goal. Basically, you train the behavior in small steps until they understand what to do.

To train a dolphin to do a hula (or spin in a circle), we first teach the dolphin to target to our hand (this means the dolphin touches our hand with his/her snout or rostrum). We reward the dolphin for doing this targetting. The next step, we ask the dolphin to begin to follow our hand in a circle. We reward them for turning just a little bit. Once the dolphin is consistently turning a little bit when we ask them, we start to ask them to turn more. Gradually, we keep rewarding these progressive steps until the dolphin understands, "OH!!!! I'm supposed to turn in a circle!"


With successive approximations, you'll want to remember to relax some criteria while you work on new ones. For example, with the dolphin, I may relax my criteria on the target (the dolphin doesn't always have to touch my hand as long as they are following it in a circle). That gives the dolphin one obvious criterion to focus on. Imagine if someone asked you to play a two-handed piano piece when you've never played piano before. You'd want to start learing the part for one hand, then the other part for the other hand, THEN you put it together. You wouldn't try to do it all at once!!! You certainly shouldn't put your animal through that process either. Focus on one part of the behavior at a time, and when they are doing all the parts well independently, that's when you start to merge them together.

At some point in that process, you'll want to add the Sd. It is up to you when you want to add that into your successive approximations (or "approxes" as we call it in dolphin training). I personally like to start showing them the Sd as soon as possible, but it's a personal opinion when you want to add that in.

What's GREAT about successive approximation training is if/when your animal forgets the behavior one day (it happens to people, too!), you can "remind" them by going back to one of your earlier steps!

Capturing This is when you reinforce a finished behavior that the parrot offers on their own. This is how we get a lot of dolphins to make sounds on Sd. For example, I hear a dolphin start to make a really cool sound outside of a session one day. I blow my whistle (bridge!) and grab some fish and throw it at the dolphin. Eventually, they start offering that particular sound over and over again, because I keep rewarding them for it. I then add the Sd and reward them for responding to it with the right vocalization, and voila! I've "captured" the behavior!

You can do this with ANY behavior your parrot does. You can capture vocalizations, capture head bobbing....anything.

The only down side to this method of training is if the behavior breaks down (your animal forgets it, for example), there is no recourse of reminding them of it. You have to hope they just spontaneously recall it.

Modeling/mimicking This is exactly what it sounds like! Dolphins and parrots are wonderful mimickers, and we all know about the late Alex (the African grey that Dr. Irene Pepperberg did so much amazing workw ith) learning from a "model/rival" method of training.

Basically, this is teaching an animal what do to by letting it copy or mimic what another person or animal is doing. In the case of Alex, he had two trainers. One trainer would hold up a key and ask the other trainer, "What is this?" and the second trainer would respond with, "a key". The first trainer would "reward" the second trainer by giving her the key. Alex say this, and because he loved chewing on keys and things, wanted that key badly. So the first trainer would ask Alex, "What is this Alex?" and he would have to start to say "key" or something close to it in order to receive the key reward to chew on. You can use successive approximations with this method, because eventually Alex had to articulately say "KEY", not just make sounds similar to it, in order to get his reward.

You can use model/rival training with everything, not just teaching your parrot to talk. You can even use a parrot as your "Second trainer". If one of your parrots knows how to hula, and you want your other parrot to hula, you can ask your knowledgable parrot to hula several times in front of the one that doesn't know it. When the new parrot sees the other one get rewarded for spinning in a circle when the Sd is given, you'd be surprised how motivated he is to spin a circle for you when you give him the same Sd!


Check out part 3 (below, next reply) for more!

[liquidspoof]

Part 3!

Okay, so we've gone over terms, motivation, communication, and training new behaviors. It's a lot of info, and as you can see, we've barely scratched the surface with training. But you know what? Once you have these basic prinicples under your belt, you can let your experience, successes, and mistakes to shape your own training methods. Experience is the most important thing when it comes to becoming a better training, and you also have to be open to other ideas. The second you close your mind off to training methods that seem unfamiliar, you become a not-so-great trainer. You'll hear a lot of things you don't agree with,a nd a lot of things you do agree with...but be willing to hear all sides of the story (unless of course abuse is involved, which is never, ever acceptable).




Tips to remember no matter HOW you train your parrot:

1) TRAINING IS TEACHING!
2) BE CONSISTENT, BE FAIR. You do NOT want to be inconsistent with your parrot. If one day you ask for a wave, and they don't do it very well....give them an LRS and try again. Don't say, "Well....he tried...so I'm going to reward him anyway." In your head, you are rewarding his effort. But HE doesn't understand that. What you have said to him is, "You don't really have to wave to get rewarded." That can become very frustrating if the next time you ask for a wave, the parrot does another poor wave, and you don't reinforce it this time. Then the parrot thinks, "WTF! Last time you rewarded my slow wave, and now you're not? What's the deal?" It's ALWAYS best to be consistent with your training, even if you think they made a good effort.
3) THERE ARE MANY GOOD WAYS TO TRAIN ANIMALS...NOT JUST ONE!!!!!!
4) Everything you do communicates something to your animal. Parrots, dogs, cats, dolphins...they are social animals. Because they can't talk to use using our words, they are watching our every move to understand us. Once you start training them, you've opened a sort of two-way communciation between them, and what YOU reinforce (knowing that or not!!!) will shape their behavior. Be CAREFUL what you reward!
5) Have fun! Training is beneficial and empowering to the animal...and it should be fun for both of you!

Please, please share any additions you may have or other opinions. If you have questions for me privately, please email them to liquidspoof@gmail.com, but I would encourage you to keep your thoughts, questions, concerns public so we can all learn from them. Thanks very much!

Sorry this was in 3 parts. I couldn't post it as one thread!

[parrotntn]

What great information to have here as a resource! Thanks for posting it! I like how you give examples of each technique.
I'm a big proponent of clicker training.
Thanks and post more when you have the chance.

[jmacek07]

Liquidsproof...what a great post..Thanks for your valuable information!

[Maegen Sue Persing]

This is exactly the kind of information I was looking for...I am new to bird owning and have had trouble training them. So thank you for the examples and scenarios. Truely helpful to the uninformed!

[New Ekkie Mom]

Wonderful information! Very well written as well! Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us. I grew up going to Sea World, and I still love to visit whenever I can. My interest in and desire for training my dogs and bird is a result of watching those trainers with the dolphins and sea lions. Of the whole post though, my favorite part was when you said...

Originally Posted by liquidspoof

You do NOT want to be inconsistent with your parrot....Then the parrot thinks, "WTF!..."

I can just see that thought going through my Eclectus' head whenever I make a training mistake. So that's what he's thinking when he makes that expression. I laughed out loud when I read that!

Thank you again for the very valuable information and the big laugh.

Danielle

[Tazzie]

What wonderful and detailed information! Thank you so much, I'll be printing and keeping a copy.

[rnocera]

Thank you very much for posting all of this. It's full of information I'll be sure to use!

[purplecleo]

Thank you for the wonderful post, it's exactly what me and my G2 needed :D