Magazine Training + Shaping (Day 1)

The notes for the following post were recorded on the day of my lesson with Devon.
-------------------------

Training Day 1: 9/19/12

Goal: To magazine train and begin shaping. In magazine training, I am attempting to classically condition an association between the sound of the food magazine and the delivery of food (reward). In addition, I began shaping to form as association between being near/ touching the bar with a reward. This will prepare Mitzy for further shaping in which I will reinforce bar presses alone.

Procedure:
Mitzy was put on a food deprivation diet to maximize motivation while training. She was deprived to approximately 85% of her starting weight, and weighed 110 grams today (4g above target). For Day 1 of training, I began by delivering a food pellet when my rat was turned toward the magazine. I advanced by reinforcing approaches to the magazine/ bar, and would give a pellet each time that she ate her food, pulled her head out of the magazine, and continued to explore this back corner area.

Results:
Mitzy quickly began exploring the box, giving me an opportunity to administer a pellet when she first directed her attention to the magazine. After a few tries at this, she began to notice the food coming into the magazine. For most of the training session, she would eat her pellet and go explore a different part of the box. However, after a while she began to demonstrate an association with the food delivery and her presence in/ exploration of the back corner, and began to spend much of her time sniffing around and rearing between the magazine and the bar.

At this point I began shaping. I began pressing the button when Mitzy reared above the bar, sniffed the bar, and touched the bar, and stopped reinforcing behavior such as approaching or looking at the magazine.

Discussion:
I was somewhat surprised by how quickly Mitzy demonstrated an association between the sound of the magazine and food delivery. Although she would not go to the magazine right away for about the first half of the session, after ~15 minutes she would retrieve her food almost as soon as she heard the magazine sound. In addition, she appeared to be highly motivated by the food reward. Although she is a few grams above her target weight, I will consider keeping her at this current body weight, as it does not seem to impair her training motivation.

The shaping process seems to be off to a good start. By the end of the session, she was spending most of her time in the back corner (rearing, sniffing, etc). She still continues to sniff around the front of the box on occasion, and takes somewhat frequent grooming breaks.

I manually reinforced Mitzy 72 times, and she pressed the bar once.
The session ran from 5:40 PM to 6:10 PM.