The Surprising Science Of Motivation

[corvus]

I wasn't talking about operant conditioning, I was talking about contrafreeloading, it is different and cats are the only species tested (since my last lit search on it) that haven't demonstrated it.

Sorry, misunderstood. It sounded the same, but I didn't realise the important bit was that they would work for food when they could get the exact same thing for free. No wonder captive wild cats are always so untoned.

Without knowing anything about it, couldn't it be that seeking for food is inherently rewarding? The way that hunting behaviour is thought to be inherently rewarding (in that the bit of the brain that lights up when a cat goes for a mouse is the same bit that lights up during reward-seeking behaviour)? Do you still see contrafreeloading if there is uncertainty in whether there is food to be had from working? To what extent do you see it in animals in enriched environments versus impoverished environments?

Before I started training my hare, I used to mix up dried currants and the likes in his food and hide them in his hay. He would race over to rifle through everything to find the currants as soon as I put his bowl down. How do you tell if an animal doesn't just choose to work for something that is available for free simply because it's a bored animal and working alleviates the boredom?

[corvus]

Do you still see contrafreeloading if there is uncertainty in whether there is food to be had from working? To what extent do you see it in animals in enriched environments versus impoverished environments?

How do you tell if an animal doesn't just choose to work for something that is available for free simply because it's a bored animal and working alleviates the boredom?

It's all right, I found a paper that pretty much answered those questions at least. I liked their idea of an enriched environment for ratties.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1333515/

[Aidan]

Without knowing anything about it, couldn't it be that seeking for food is inherently rewarding?

Have you read "Reaching the Animal Mind"? Pryor talks about a neuroscientist, Jaak Panksepp and what he has termed the "seeking circuit". Worth a look.

[corvus]

I haven't read it, but I have heard of Panksepp and a dog-training friend is currently reading what sounds like a whole lot of scary neuroscience that he's written. I wish I hadn't had such a useless neuroscience lecturer in first year. I'm finding it really interesting stuff just as a hobby. But, you know, a little knowledge can be a bad thing. I can't help zipping around life looking for things that might be relevant to other things I'm currently learning about, and applying a simplistic, hobby-ish understanding of neuroscience to behaviour is maybe treading on thin ice.

[m-j]

Some cats are good problem solvers, and I suspect that over time they'll evolve to be better at it as a species the longer they are domesticated.

I have actually thought the opposite is true just from having feral cats I have trapped and quietened to having cats that are domesticated. When teaching them things, through shaping and luring, I found they learned quicker. The ferals were all from the same family though (just different generations).

cheers

M-J

[Aidan]

Some cats are good problem solvers, and I suspect that over time they'll evolve to be better at it as a species the longer they are domesticated.

I have actually thought the opposite is true just from having feral cats I have trapped and quietened to having cats that are domesticated. When teaching them things, through shaping and luring, I found they learned quicker. The ferals were all from the same family though (just different generations).

cheers

M-J

I too wondered about that comment, a client of mine had a Bengal who was freaky clever. They referred to him as their "dog", even though they also had a dog. The comment is still valid though - in the bigger picture. Remembering that feral cats are domestic cats, their time in the wild even if several generations is just a blink of an eye. A few generations of "natural selection" probably just brings out the best of them. The Bengal was mostly domestic cat, the Asian Leopard Cat has very few of the characteristics that made this particular cat so much fun (as far as I know).

[Are You Serious Jo]

Some cats are good problem solvers, and I suspect that over time they'll evolve to be better at it as a species the longer they are domesticated.

I have actually thought the opposite is true just from having feral cats I have trapped and quietened to having cats that are domesticated. When teaching them things, through shaping and luring, I found they learned quicker. The ferals were all from the same family though (just different generations).

cheers

M-J

I too wondered about that comment, a client of mine had a Bengal who was freaky clever. They referred to him as their "dog", even though they also had a dog. The comment is still valid though - in the bigger picture. Remembering that feral cats are domestic cats, their time in the wild even if several generations is just a blink of an eye. A few generations of "natural selection" probably just brings out the best of them. The Bengal was mostly domestic cat, the Asian Leopard Cat has very few of the characteristics that made this particular cat so much fun (as far as I know).

Yep, needs a bit more time and selection. I would think that it wouldn't work in the same way that dog domestication did anyway as the starting point is different, wolves were already highly social when domestication started, whereas cats weren't.

[Erny]

I haven't read every post in this thread, so perhaps the point of my post is going to be a bit out-dated. But one of the things that struck me the most from that video and that I don't think has been made much of is the fact that the first example 'exercise' (the candle) was and is presented to people who haven't learnt to learn what the presenter wants from them.

For example, once I saw the answer, I was fairly certain that given another similar exercise, I would reasonably quickly be able to work out what the solution was, because I had been shown a 'train of thought' that was required in those exercises. So for me, that part of it is about learning to learn. And that's what we already do with our dogs (well, many of us here on DOL, anyway) .... we teach by 'showing' or making things easy for our dogs to grasp and move upwards and onwards from there.

The second point to this is the high value motivation. When a person doesn't know something - is left to 'guess' a little because he/she hasn't learnt/been shown the 'train of thought' required for the types of exercises discussed, waiving a $M cheque in front of them would have their mind retreat to 'hind brain' thinking - adrenaline getting in the way of systematic, calm thinking. Show them how to think for the purposes of the exercise/work that you want them to do and keep them calm with worthwhile rewards and you're likely to achieve results. THEN, with that learning in place, wave the $M cheque in front of them and offer them an exercise to solve and the liklihood of them achieving will be greater, because they have a 'library' of skill on which to base their responses.

Again, we already do similar/same with our dogs. When in the initial learning phase (just beginning training) we don't excite them to the point of distraction first. We show them what we want, offer a value reward to promote the result. When the learning is more in place we up the reward value (to something like drive training/reward) and use the benefits that a combination of adrenalin (faster response) and history of knowledge (alread knows eg. "sit") produces.

The conversation that has transpired throughout this thread and the different tangents offered is interesting - but coming back to the video itself, I don't think what was given produced anything new that we really didn't know before in the world of learning/training for dogs. Although it does highlight it and perhaps makes a clearer point of it for people to ponder on.

[Aidan]

But one of the things that struck me the most from that video and that I don't think has been made much of is the fact that the first example 'exercise' (the candle) was and is presented to people who haven't learnt to learn what the presenter wants from them.

For example, once I saw the answer, I was fairly certain that given another similar exercise, I would reasonably quickly be able to work out what the solution was, because I had been shown a 'train of thought' that was required in those exercises. So for me, that part of it is about learning to learn.

Good point! It is called "priming" and it works both ways, once you are primed to solve a problem a certain way you might have difficulty solving a problem that requires a different style of thinking.