Clicker Training???

[june]

Dec 23, 2010 22:04:25 GMT 1 lassiesuca said:

But I don't SEE it in this debate, Yann?

It's discussion, therefore bias views are going to be put across- at no point has someone said...

''You MUST clicker train''

''You MUSN'T use a Dually''

People have said their own views on it, hardly pigeon holing is it now?

There's some history on the DG with one of the posters lassiesuca and various threads and people were "discussed" on another board. Wouldnt surprise me if this thread had been "discussed" too. Its a shame really as the people who train using the clicker predominantly would be much more effective at changing mindsets if they used behaviour theory to deal with people too.

[lassiesuca]

Ah, I think we're all pretty guilty of that- wherever you go...

[laura]

Hi, I would agree with the others who have said it probably isn't wise to start learning about clicker training by trying to solve a problem - and this seems to be a pretty ingrained problem. That's not to try to put you off clicker training or to say that clicker training may not be helpful, but just to say that it would be worth taking time to do a bit of reading, ideally getting to see someone who is already a competent clicker trainer, and trying to teach some of the basic behaviours (targeting, no mugging etc) on a pony without so many 'issues' around food. When horses are learning 'no mugging' they quite often go through what is technically called an 'extinction burst' - what it means is the horse is going to try very hard to get the treats off you (because he has been fed treats for nothing previously) before giving up. You may see quite a lot of frustration and even aggression (hence the importance of working behind a barrier to begin with) and it's important to know how to respond to the horse. Your timing must be spot on as well - a few mis-timed clicks and the horse could think he is being rewarded for moving his nose towards you - creating even more confusion and the potential for other difficulties.

great points to add to all the other good advice from other CTers ghostrider .......the behaviour often gets worse before it gets better.

my daughter unbeknown to me taught her horse some years ago to "gove a hoof" when she stood in front of her and pointed to the leg...... and once my daughter lost interest and I took over care of B and bent down to look at her knee I just about got a broken nose !!!! In order to "get rid of" this behaviour we had to ignore a lot of extinction behaviour where the leg got higher and much more energetic....... and taught other incompatable behaviours





as to your origional questions

yes one can mix CT with "other methods" although imo you do need to be aware that if you do decide to use CT then just like any other aspect of horse training the timing of the release / click is the paramount influence otherwise you can train the wrong thing


.... with CT the horse will be actively trying to do the behaviour because he's highly motivated as he will be getting a treat rather than "just" a release of pressure .....so might get frustrated if he cant "get it right". You can manage this by either making the "task" smaller or give physical "clues" which then become the cues (as in pure neg reinforcement) ......... if you do want to go as deep as to look into the learning theories of it then the timing of the click and the release of pressure if used together can change the reinforcemer depending on which comes first (Ben Hart does a bit on this in his book) .


I think many people who are into CT incorporate what they have learnt from "other" methods like NH ( gosh that a wiiiiiiiiiide remit) / IH .......... but maybe modify the amount of pressure for example they are prepared to use ... and become aware that punishers for example while valid as part of learning might nullify or even poison a CT'd cue and diminish the effect of the CT )




As to whether it works on bargy horses ....... I saw a great example of a huuuuuuge cob pure CT'd to walk at humans side at liberty ........... and he was doing horse agility and in the presence of other horse / excitement .


I am working with a cob atm whos reaction ot being asked to to anything at all, even on the ground, is to rear and buck ..... CT is one of the tools already out of the box for her

[Kelly Marks]

There are some good points in this discussion! If anyone has read the book 'Bad Science' he says along the lines of "I'd like to put with every statement 'Well there's a bit more to it than that'" and perhaps that should be added to a lot of the posts here.

There are some really educated and informed people discussing things on here - but we've also got to be aware there are also novices looking for advice - that's when it gets so tricky because perhaps the only responsible advice is 'get an RA or highly trustworthy person to give you hands on help' - but of course that would make for a very dull discussion group!

For instance, saying can you use a Dually and clicker/food? Well it depends how you mean. Of course, you can use a Dually one day and the clicker another. You can also have a Dually on a horse while you're doing clicker training. I wouldn't advise using pressure and release with a Dually at the same time as using food or food at the same time as using pressure and release on a Dually as from what I've seen, while might work on it's own the two together can create frustration and confusion all round.
Note to Sarah W! Let's do an article on this for the LP inc. plus a practical persons guide to the 'Poisoned Cue' ?

Modified to say 'can create' rather than make it an absolute.

[ghostrider]

I wouldn't advise using pressure and release with a Dually at the same time as using food or food at the same time as using pressure and release on a Dually as from what I've seen, while might work on it's own the two together can create frustration and confusion all round.


I am very pleased to see this, and am in agreement.


Note to Sarah W! Let's do an article on this for the LP inc. plus a practical persons guide to the 'Poisoned Cue' ?

I think seeing these kinds of things addressed in the LP would be very interesting - I may have to become a member just to read the articles

I think the poisoned cue is a very important concept in horse training, much neglected. An article explaining how poisoned cues arise, how they affect behaviour and training and what can be done to avoid/resolve them would be very interesting. Whilst the work on poisoned cues is really still in its infancy I feel it is something well worth knowing about. Excellent topics for articles.

[Yann]

As I already posted I was using a dually when I first started clicker training, but it was only to signal rather than school, and a headcollar or nothing at all have done just as well since.

The whole poisoned cue thing is interesting, especially in how it applies to non clicker training situations, which would presumably be mostly poisonous according to the theory.

[Kelly Marks]

Ghostrider - you seem to wink a lot - is it a nervous affliction? My tennis teacher at school did this a lot and at that tender age I was quite concerned - do be careful you don't arouse fear in Yann (Eeek! It's catching!)

There was a Danish study re. overcoming fear in horses and the question was (all very simplified here!) which method reduces fear the soonest - desensitisation (start slow build up), habituation (start at a higher level and keep going) or either method with food added as well. And the answer is ... well naturally you have to do the Horse Psychology course to find out (Damn I can't stop this blasted winking now) but in this particular study it was found that the addition of food acted against the overcoming of fear to an additional stimulus.

My take on this is the food actually acted as a distraction working against the learning taking place. TBH though it would be interesting to have someone build on and check out this study - as we all know there is some Bad Science out there (Sorry sorry I really think I've got something in my eye now ... Yann I'm not winking at you HONESTLY!) ;D

[june]

I think that would depend on how you used the food. If you used it as a bribe then I think the study would be correct. Bribery doesn't overcome fear. You only have to try to use food to get a bad loader into a trailer to prove that! If you were to use it in a different way, asking the horse to investigate whatever it is that was worrying it and then clicking for the correct behaviour and treating then I think it might show a different result. I've certainly found clicker training the most useful method of dealing with nervous horses. In my experience it makes them braver and makes them stop and consider their actions, but then that's not a scientific study and my "n" is reasonably small!

[ghostrider]

Dec 28, 2010 21:36:52 GMT 1 Kelly Marks said:

Ghostrider - you seem to wink a lot - is it a nervous affliction?

well, no one winks as much as laura just check out how many times she winks in her post ;D


The role of food (used correctly) in a given situation involving fear is to counter condition the animal's emotions in the presence of the feared stimulus. That's an interesting finding given the amount of academic work that suggests that food is helpful in counterconditioning fear.

Desensitization can only take place if the animal is already sensitized (ie, fearful of the stimulus). Habituation occurs if the animal is not fearful of the stimulus. It is impossible to randomly divide the sample without knowing their previous learning history - even if they were exposed to a novel stimulus their previous experiences would influence whether or not they found the stimulus frightening.

habituation (start at a higher level and keep going)

that's flooding ...


edited to add link www.horsesciencenews.com/horse-training/teaching-horses-to-keep-calm.php

edited for clarity ... fingers quicker than brain!

[Yann]

Lol @ Kelly

Interesting, I would be curious to know how the food was used in order that the effectiveness of the training was reduced. If distraction is what was at work and that is counterproductive to the learning then would that have any implications for some of the IH / Monty techniques that use it? My own little experience with the sort of counter conditioning approach Ghostrider talks about is that is is very powerful and effective indeed. And obviously Sarah W has a lot of success using food rewards with feral ponies to build trust and overcome fear of humans.

There is an oft quoted study with youngsters that shows the opposite as far as teaching new behaviour goes, that the food rewarded horses learned faster and where happier to carry them out. Again, that would tie in to my own experiences, and I suppose of most people who use the clicker to any extent.

One of the things I've found is that adding a lot of positive reinforcement to a relationship with a horse does seem to have an overall impact on their attitude to the handler and life in general, they seem to soften mentally to some extent.
I find it interesting that in some quarters, where the focus is on developing feel and softness and being 'there' with the horse that using food rewards is considered to get in the way of that objective. I'm still trying to work that one out personally, nothing new there

[ghostrider]

I would agree with what Yann has written.

Is this the study you are referring to Yann?

Positive interactions lead to lasting positive memories in horses, Equus caballus

Social relationships are important in social species. These relationships, based on repeated interactions, define each partner's expectations during the following encounters. The creation of a relationship implies high social cognitive abilities which require that each partner is able to associate the positive or negative content of an interaction with a specific partner and to recall this association. In this study, we tested the effects of repeated interactions on the memory kept by 23 young horses about humans, after 6 and 8 months of separation. The association of a reward with a learning task in an interactional context induced positive reactions towards humans during training. It also increased contact and interest, not only just after training, but also several months later, despite no further interaction with humans. In addition, this ‘positive memory’ of humans extended to novel persons. Overall, positive reinforcement enhanced learning and memorization of the task itself. These findings suggest remarkable social cognitive abilities that can be transposed from intraspecific to interspecific social contexts.



I'm guessing that is more in line with what you, I and folk like June see when we use positive reinforcement with horses. I think that food affects horses in both an operant and classical way in a learning situation - operantly because the horse is learning to change behaviours as a result of positive consequnces and classically at an emotional/unconscious level as a result of the repeated, positive associations.

The main weakness in the study Kelly quoted, from what I can see without having read the paper is that no one can ever tell whether a horse will habituate or sensitize to a stimulus until the stimulus has been presented - it is not an articifical category that can be pre-ordained by scientists, but a result of the horse's perception of the situation. It does not take into account the individual differences of the horses - and as the number of horses used in this study is so small, those differences can't be factored out. If a horse has sensitized to the initial presentation of the stimulus, and the experimenters have 'kept going' (re the 'habituation' category) then that is flooding, and I am not surprised that food did not work - the food cannot out-weigh the fear, the positive has to be stronger than the aversive.


edited for spelling!

[Yann]

It may be the same one, although I got the impression the focus was more about the effectiveness of teaching tasks rather than the effect on social relationships.

[mandal]

I'm trying to keep quiet, honest! Lol I've missed Laura's winking and smilies in general btw.

May I just clarify something in my (strange admittedly) head?

Desensitization (without food). The horse learns that the 'thing' isn't going to hurt him.

CT. The horse replaces a feeling of fear with a pleasurable feeling in the presence of the scary 'thing'?
Would that be a correct very basic difference in the way behaviour is changed in the two scenarios? Or am I way over thinking this?

[ghostrider]

They taught them a fair bit of stuff in this study as well ... details below (sorry the layout didn't carry over very well - but you'll get the drift).


Training procedure
The aim of our training programme was to train yearlings to remain immobile without being held in response to a simple vocal command: ‘reste!’ (i.e. French for ‘stay!’). Once this was achieved, the horses underwent various handling or veterinary procedures using the same vocal command. All horses were trained until completion of the training programme (Table 1). Before the start of training, all yearlings were habituated to being haltered and led in hand. Rewards were never used during this initial habituation.

Table 1.
Description of the steps comprising the yearlings' training programme
Steps Description
Steps 1–5 and 7–41 When the experimenter stopped walking, she placed the lead rope on the horse's neck before giving the vocal order to stay. To succeed, the horse had to maintain immobility for the following times
Step 1 For 5 s
Step 2 For 10 s
Step 3 For 30 s
Step 4 For 45 s
Step 5 For 1 min
Step 6 For 1 min (but no lead rope attached)
Step 7 While the experimenter brushed its neck and shoulder (30 s/side)
Step 8 While the experimenter brushed its back and croup (30 s/side)
Step 9 While the experimenter brushed its flank and belly (30 s/side)
Step 10 While the experimenter brushed its forelegs and hindlegs (30 s/side)
Step 11 While the experimenter brushed its tail for 1 min
Step 12 While the experimenter brushed its whole body for 1 min (30 s/side)
Step 13 And gently let the experimenter pick up its front feet
Step 14 And gently let the experimenter pick up its back feet
Step 15 And gently let the experimenter pick up its front feet and hold them (5 s/foot)
Step 16 And gently let the experimenter pick up its back feet and hold them (5 s/foot)
Step 17 And gently let the experimenter pick up its front feet and hold them (10 s/foot)
Step 18 And gently let the experimenter pick up its back feet and hold them (10 s/foot)
Step 19 And gently let the experimenter clean its front feet (10 s/foot)
Step 20 And gently let the experimenter clean its back feet (10 s/foot)
Step 21 And gently let the experimenter clean its four feet (10 s/foot)
Step 22 While the experimenter placed a surcingle on its back
Step 23 While the experimenter placed a surcingle on its back and left it for 5 s
Step 24 While the experimenter placed a surcingle on its back and passed the belts under the belly
Step 25 While the experimenter placed a surcingle on its back and tightened the belts
Step 26 While the experimenter placed a surcingle on its back and attached the belts
Step 27 While the experimenter placed and attached the surcingle and then walk two steps with the surcingle attached
Step 28 As in step 27, but five steps
Step 29 As in steps 27 and 28, but 10 steps
Step 30 While the experimenter fitted tendon boots on its forelegs
Step 31 While the experimenter fitted protection boots on its hindlegs
Step 32 The horse had to remain immobile while the experimenter fitted tendon boots on its forelegs and left them for 10 s each
Step 33 While the experimenter fitted protection boots on its hindlegs and left them for 10 s each
Step 34 While the experimenter lifted its tail
Step 35 While the experimenter inserted a thermometer in its rectum
Step 36 While the experimenter inserted a thermometer in its rectum and left it for 10 s
Step 37 While the experimenter applied a vapour spray on its neck and shoulders
Step 38 While the experimenter applied a vapour spray on its back and croup
Step 39 While the experimenter applied a vapour spray on its flanks and belly
Step 40 While the experimenter applied a vapour spray on its four legs
Step 41 While the experimenter applied a vapour spray on its whole body
Full-size table
View Within Article

Horses were trained 5 min/day, 5 days per week. During the two remaining days, they all stayed together in a pasture. On training days, the horses were pushed along fenced pathways from their pasture to a large indoor pen. They were then individually allowed to enter an adjacent training arena (10.5 × 15 m), separated from the pen by large doors, which prevented the horses from touching or seeing each other during training. During this experiment, horses would spontaneously approach the doors leading to the training arena and the experimenter only had to open the doors and let one horse in at a time. Training was performed by a single experimenter (woman, long dark hair). She dressed differently every day but always wore the same green coat. At the beginning of each training session, the experimenter opened the door of the training arena and waited for one horse to enter spontaneously. It was haltered and a lead rope was attached. Training then began for a 5 min session, after which the horse was released in an outdoor pen. At the end of the day, all the horses were released in their pasture.

During all training sessions, the horses' behaviour was continuously recorded using a digital voice recorder equipped with a microphone, to verify whether horses perceived positive reinforcement training as a positive interaction (e.g. positive/affiliative behaviours: sniffing, licking; versus negative/defence behaviours: biting, kicking or ‘falling down’ on the experimenter, which consists of the horse leaning heavily against, and letting itself fall down on, the experimenter while she was picking up a foot).

[Kelly Marks]

Hey Guys!
This thread is turning into a well thought out and respectful discussion. Well Done! Lots of Positive Reinforcement for you all!
Kxx