Here’s a tasty tidbit discussed at the Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. Trainers often say “high rate of reinforcement” when they really mean “fast delivery of reinforcers.” Yup those are two different things. Think of high rate of reinforcement as repeating (and reinforcing) the behavior many times within a set amount of time. This can build a strong reinforcement history for the behavior. This repetition does not necessarily need to happen super fast. However, there are times when reaching training goals are facilitated by fast delivery of reinforcers. The cow in this clip was very motivated for food to the point of being pushy and potentially dangerous. I wanted her to station her two front hooves on the mat. Using a target and even a bridge would have created too much of a delay. Delivering food quickly in the location I wanted her to be helped communicate the desired behavior goal. As she began to understand, I could delay delivery of reinforcers and move farther away from her. I could have also added an auditory bridge at this stage. (My hand coming forward signaled correct behavior instead.) With more training I could work on fine tuning to build a more solid stance on the mat. But for now, the point is fast delivery is an important tool in our training tool box and is not to be confused with a high rate of reinforcement. #rateofreinforcement #fastdelivery #cowtraining #stationtraining (at Borås Djurpark) https://www.instagram.com/p/BucOx8sgHer/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1moji0si8i76r
