Sniffy the Virtual Rat

Sniffy is a program that allows you to virtually train a rat in an operant box. The program starts with magazine training. This occurs when Sniffy begins to associate the clicking sound and the light with receiving food. Magazine training for Sniffy did not take very long. Altogether it took about 20 minutes to have Sniffy reliably going to the magazine opening after hearing the noise the machine makes. After Sniffy was completely magazine trained, we moved on to shaping. The goal for shaping Sniffy was to have him press the bar in the operant box in order to receive food on his own. Shaping took longer than magazine training. I spent approximately an hour shaping Sniffy and it looked like this:

Shaping-
I reinforced Sniffy when he moved into the quadrant of the box with the bar in it. Then I reinforced Sniffy when he bumped/sniffed/bit/put paws on the bar. Eventually Sniffy pressed the bar on his own several times and began to press the bar reliably on his own to get food. Shaping was finished.

After completing Sniffy's shaping, I put him on a FR4 schedule. Sniffy seemed more focused during the schedule training than during shaping. He moved a lot quicker to the bar and seemed to pick up on the fact that he had to press it 4 times to get food.

Sniffy was then put on an extinction schedule. Extinction is "unlearning" a behavior. Sniffy pressed the bar throughout the session but was not rewarded at all. Extinction took about 40 minutes for Sniffy. He seemed slightly agitated through the process. 

After completing Sniffy's training and extinction, I feel slightly more prepared to train Nala (my live rat). I feel like I have a better understanding of how the process of training works. I also feel as if I will be able to make a better plan for shaping Nala now that I have shaped Sniffy. I have a better understanding of what behaviors to look for during the process. However, I do not think that training a live rat will be as easy as Sniffy turned out to be. I think Nala will prove to be a bit more difficult.