I just started working in the rat lab last week, and we are training our rat to push down this cart off of a ramp. How are we planning to teach this, you may ask? Well, by reinforcing the little steps the rat takes leading up to his big feat of pushing the cart down the ramp.
It starts out with a look in the right direction- bam, reinforced with food.
Now, stepping in the right direction- kaching, food!
Then, a paw on the first step- bang, reinforced.
Paws on second step, third, fourth..... now all four paws on the steps- reinforced, reinforced, reinforced! He has finally gotten the hang of what we want him to do.
I would compare this to the "hot and cold" game that we played as children. We would get in a group and we would hide an object from one person, then they would have to find it. When the person was getting closer, we would clap (reinforcer). But if they started going in the wrong direction, we would stop clapping. Eventually, even if they were in the right direction, if they stopped making progress towards the object, we wouldn't clap.
For both scenarios, little progress in the right direction was reinforced, and the old behaviors that aren't getting close to the ultimate end behavior, were extinct. This is shaping! Reinforcing little milestones to make it to the ultimate target goal. A principle from a childhood favorite is now being applied to a little rat (we call him George...)
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