Sniffy and Tessa: A Comparison of Virtual and Live Rat Training

Shaping Sniffy the Virtual Rat was definitely easier than shaping Tessa. This was due to the lower variability in the program's behaviors compared to the live rat. Although the program did include a variety of behaviors, it was simple to understand what procedures were having the best effect on shaping by observing the bar-sound graph's progress. For example, reinforcing Sniffy for rearing behaviors almost always resulted in him approaching the bar. It took nearly one hour to shape Sniffy to press the bar. In contrast, the shaping process for Tessa was a lot more involved than with the virtual rat. It was necessary for me to be much more alert because I was attempting to reward behaviors such as looking towards the bar and moving towards the bar. These behaviors were present in the virtual rat, but they were difficult to detect because of graphical limitations. Tessa was more variable in her behaviors, which was beneficial for shaping because I was able to quickly determine which behaviors could lead to bar-pressing. However, her tendency to rear and jump towards the top of the cage was a problem, especially when she jumped on the bar and received reinforcement for jumping behavior. Shaping Tessa took a total of two days.

Magazine training was similar for both Sniffy and Tessa. By rewarding both organisms immediately after they received reinforcement, I was able to keep them both near the food magazine until they began associating the magazine with reinforcement. Tessa was more likely than Sniffy to respond to delivered reinforcements when she was on the opposite side of the box. This allowed me to encourage Tessa to return to the magazine, and I was then able to quickly deliver reinforcements. Magazine training for Tessa was successful within the first training session (approximately after 15 minutes), and it took a total of 19 minutes to magazine train Sniffy.

Figure 1. Cumulative record for FR-5 schedule of reinforcement for Tessa.

It was very useful to have both a virtual and live rat during this training process. The virtual rat prepared me to interact with the live rat by providing an understanding of the process of magazine training and shaping. Understanding the importance of paying close attention to the organism was emphasized in the Sniffy program - whenever I missed a behavior that should be reinforced, the graph of bar-sound association would decrease. Therefore, I was more likely to pay attention to my live rat when shaping her. The program also helped me form an understanding of the different schedules of reinforcements. Due to time constraints, I was only able to complete a FR20 schedule with Tessa. However, I was able to complete a VR50 schedule with Sniffy over the course of an hour. I recommend using Sniffy in future classes, and possibly requiring students to complete multiple schedules of reinforcement to understand how the behavior varies between schedules.

All in all, I found it very useful to train the virtual rat before training my live rat. Even though I paid more attention to my live rat, the virtual training process contributed to my understanding of the training process. Tessa's high variability of behavior did affect the training process, but I did not run into any major hurdles because I understood the underlying processes involved in training the bar-pressing behavior.