Fixed Ratio Adventures

9/23: Day 5, FR3
9:10- 9:40 AM
Noted behaviors: pressing and holding bar, biting bar, checking magazine between presses; beginning to press more quickly; often presses in quick succession without going elsewhere or checking magazine; overall, high number of responses
Run time: 30 minutes
Bar presses: 458
Reinforcements: 149

9/24: Day 6, FR3 cont...
8:11- 8:31 AM
Noted behaviors: continues to put increasing amounts of effort into each press when she is not rewarded; some long pauses within her 3 presses; starts pressing 3 in a row fairly consistently at ~10 min.; appears somewhat nervous today (jumping at any sounds, frequent grooming, moving around box)
Run time: 20 minutes (seemed to lose motivation)
Bar presses: 206
Reinforcements: 68

9/25: Day 7, FR5
8:06- 8:27 AM
Noted behaviors: started training well, pressing fairly quickly and consistently; some bar biting throughout; beginning to see longer post-reinforcement pauses (grooming/ walking away after receiving her reward); lost focus after ~18 minutes
Run time: 21 minutes
Bar presses: 336
Reinforcements: 67

9/26: Day 8, FR7
8:05- 8:28 AM
Noted behaviors: pressing in fairly quick succession, very rarely checking the hopper between presses; biting the bar for some of her presses; apparent high motivation, held focus for most of the session
Run time: 23.5 minutes
Bar presses: 438
Reinforcements: 62

9/27: Day 9, FR10
8:09- 8:29 AM
Noted behaviors: some instances of biting; pressed bar with nose quite often (which was still reinforced automatically); long post-reinforcement pauses; on a few occasions, she demonstrated behavior that I haven't seen since shaping, such as biting the magazine, trying to squeeze into it, etc
Run time: 20 minutes
Bar presses: 456
Reinforcements: 45

9/28: Day 10, FR10 cont...
8:05- 8:26 AM
Noted behaviors: Checked magazine in between presses far less frequently as in lower ratio FRs (learning to press consecutively until she hears the sound); still biting the bar, trying to press it upward from below, holding bar for several seconds; large post-reinforcement pauses, but appeared fairly motivated; stopped early because of high number of bar presses, and a long grooming session around 20 minutes
Run time: 21 minutes
Bar presses: 513
Reinforcements: 51

10/1: Day 11, FR10 cont...
8:10- 8:33 AM
Run time: 23 minutes
Bar presses: 465
Reinforcements: 46

10/2: Day 12, FR12
8:04- 8:26 AM
Noted behaviors: Demonstrated similar behaviors (including distracted behaviors, bar biting, etc) and the same high rate of response seen in FR10 schedule.
Run time: 22 minutes
Bar presses: 501
Reinforcements: 42

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Overall, I have been very pleased with my rat's rate of learning. In general, she seems to be very motivated (at least for the first 20 minutes of training). She typically demonstrates the instrumental response fairly quickly (i.e., many presses in a row without walking away or checking the hopper). As predicted, I am observing longer post-reinforcement pauses as I continue to stretch the ratio. Lastly, many of her "presses" result from her biting the bar, and she tends to increase such behavior the higher the ratio gets.