Magazine Training Nala

Goal:

To magazine train Nala. I aim for Nala to create an associate between hearing the noise of the magazine and receiving food. The sound of the magazine device will become a secondary reinforcer that will allow for further training. I hope to see Nala approach the magazine opening every time I click the hand switch by the end of the session.

Procedure:

Nala has been food deprived for the past few days. I have gotten her to approximately 90% of her body weight. She started at 221g and now weighs 203g, a few grams above her target weight of 199g. Dr. Trench, my professor for Learning and Behavior, accompanied me in the first training session. The first day of training I reinforced Nala when she was near the magazine opening. I waited for her to move away slightly before pressing the hand switch again to release another food pellet. This continued on for the rest of the 30 minute session. By the end of the session Nala was reliably going to the magazine opening soon after a pellet had been release which left me confident that she had made an association between the magazine noise and receiving a food pellet. For the 28 minutes that Nala was in the operant box she was presented with 45 food reinforcements and pressed with bar 1 time.  

Results:

By the end of the session, Nala was reliably going to the magazine opening to eat within a few seconds of a pellet being released. This lead to me to believe that Nala was magazine trained.

Discussion:

The criteria I used to determine if Nala was magazine trained was the time in which it took her to go to the magazine opening to eat the food after the pellet had been released. By the end of the session, she was going to the opening to eat within a few seconds of the food being released. I noticed that Nala was more easily distracted than Sniffy the virtual rat. She took more time to explore the box or groom herself. Nala also seemed more frightened of the new environment than Sniffy did. Nala's magazine training was similar to the book/class discussion. We discussed in class how the live rats would take more time to explore and be more distracted than one would assume.