Motivation - Fear or To Please?

[puzzles]

ANOTHER brain teaser from Puzzley wuzzley!

The question is - which method of training teaches horses most effectively?

Considering that behaving a certain way out of fear comes from a desire to avoid being hurt/otherwise threatened and put in danger in some way (from the horse's point of view) and behaving to please comes from knowing that a reward follows a certain behaviour.

I know that so many other factors and learning methods come into it (i.e. negative and positive punishment, negative and positive reinforcement).

Any quotes from NH/trainers etc to keep the discussion ripe are more than welcome!



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[wonkeywoody]

I don't think there is a definative answer to that question!

There are several factors to take into account:

1. The trainer - major factor on the outcome no matter what category of method used.
2. The result aimed for - obedient, or, happy, dignified and obedient.
3. The horse - like it or lump it, horses do have different personalities and one method of training may suit one horse to a tee and completely ruin another.

 

[puzzles]

Yesssss a response! Thank you wonkywoody

So it depends on a) what you're trying to achieve, and b) how you intend to get there.

Can some things only be gained through fear/force, or positive/sympathetic handling?

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[eventerbabe]

it is widely known that negative reinforcement when educating children does not work. but positive reinforcement does (my pupils love stamp/sticker charts rewarding them for homeworks, neat jotters etc). i've just written a huge assignment looking at the father of behaviourism, BF Skinner (the concept of repetition and positive/negative reinforcement) and his work originally started on animals (pigeons i believe, and work was done by a predecessor with dogs), so from what i know in an educational context i guess positive reinforcement might be effective. how many of us give our horses a pat or a treat when they do well? i know i do. but, as with children and linking back to skinners thoughts the environment in which they are learning can have an impact too. again, i can see this relating to horses. mine certainly work better in a calm, safe environment. and, as has been mentioned, the horse itself plays a part. again, like kids, some are willing to learn and others just don't darn well want to! thats when you have to change course, reassess what you are doing and how things can be improved. it's quite a complicated question!

 

[wonkeywoody]

Can some things only be gained through fear/force....

No, tho some horses will oblige with that kind of method - others' will retaliate!!!

 

[martini55]

With animals I think both positive and negative reinforcement work when it comes to training (if used correctly of course), punishment does not - although if your timing is absolutely spot on it may (or may not) work at stopping/decreasing an undesired behaviour

My question back to you is, is there such a thing as positive punishment? What would you class as positive punishment? Bit of an oxymoron in my opinion

 

[wonkeywoody]

My question back to you is, is there such a thing as positive punishment?

Making the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy ????????????

 

[puzzles]

With animals I think both positive and negative reinforcement work when it comes to training (if used correctly of course), punishment does not - although if your timing is absolutely spot on it may (or may not) work at stopping/decreasing an undesired behaviour

My question back to you is, is there such a thing as positive punishment? What would you class as positive punishment? Bit of an oxymoron in my opinion

OoOohhh a question! Ok, just so we're all coming from the same place -

Punishment:
A consequence that follows an operant response that decreases (or attempts to decrease) the likelihood of that response occurring in the future.

Positive Punishment:
In an attempt to decrease the likelihood of an unwanted behavior occurring in the future, an operant response is followed by the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus. I.e. a person strokes a horse in a place that it doesn't like and it bites the handler. So the bite acts as a positive punisher because something positive has come out of it - the handler (hopefully!) won't stroke the horse in that way again.

Negative Punishment:
In an attempt to decrease the likelihood of a behavior occurring in the future, an operant response is followed by the removal of an appetitive stimulus. I.e. a child may have a privilege taken away for speaking back to her mother (I can't think of a valid horsey example) to decrease the liklehgood of the child talking back to her mother again.

Positive Reinforcement:
A consequence is presented dependent on a behaviorso that the desired behavior becomes more likely to occur. The behavior becomes more likely to occur because, and only because, the consequence is presented dependent on the behavior. It is not simply giving a reward for good behaviour or when the horse pleases the handler. I.e. clicker training.

Negative Reinforcement:
Otfen confused with punishment, this strengthens a desired behavior because a negative condition is stopped or avoided as a consequence of the behaviour. I.e. putting the leg on to ask the horse to move forwards, and only releasing the pressure when the horse has moved forward.

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[puzzles]

Oooh - and:

Extinction:
This is the complete subtraction of a behaviour, which is very difficult to achieve.

THUD

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[puzzles]

THUD

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[martini55]

Making the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy ????????????

I suppose it depends on your definition of punishment. To me punishment = presenting an unpleasant stimulus and/or removing a pleasant stimulus in an attempt to decrease the frequency of an unwanted behaviour. For example, your horse does something undesired so you smack it in an attempt to stop that behaviour happening again.

So to me the above would be more negative reinforcement- increasing the frequency of the behaviour you want through the removal of an unpleasant stimulus. A classic example of that would be pressure and release. You increase the pressure until you get the desired response. E.g/ teaching the horse to back up, you might ask first by applying light pressure on the lead rope and then increase it until the horse takes a step back, then you release the pressure as soon as it does. Make sense? I'm not the best at explaining things!

Ah ok, I get what you mean by positive punishment puzzles.

 

[puzzles]

I suppose it depends on your definition of punishment. To me punishment = presenting an unpleasant stimulus and/or removing a pleasant stimulus in an attempt to decrease the frequency of an unwanted behaviour. For example, your horse does something undesired so you smack it in an attempt to stop that behaviour happening again.

So to me the above would be more negative reinforcement- increasing the frequency of the behaviour you want through the removal of an unpleasant stimulus. A classic example of that would be pressure and release. You increase the pressure until you get the desired response. E.g/ teaching the horse to back up, you might ask first by applying light pressure on the lead rope and then increase it until the horse takes a step back, then you release the pressure as soon as it does. Make sense? I'm not the best at explaining things!

Ah ok, I get what you mean by positive punishment puzzles.

Yeah, sorry about the psycho-jumbo ... I just wanted to make sure that it said what I meant it to say, which meant using psycho terminology.

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[KP nut]

Interesting thread.

How would the following be classified in behavioural terms?

Making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult?

Using assertive body language to a bargy horse?

Using passive/non threatening body language for a scared horse?

Join up?

Is there a difference between purely behavioural approaches and those that use human-horse communication/relationship. Or can those also be understood behaviourally?

I think there are few more categories of behavioral approaches that are crucial with a flight animal:

Systematic desensitisation: presenting a feared stimulus (eg a plastic bag) in a graded way until the horse's anxiety response fades and the horse becomes comfortable with it.

Habituation: the final extinguishing of the anxious response

And there's also:

Shaping: positive reinforcement of naturally occurring behaviours to build up
behavioural sequences gradually.

 

[KP nut]

Or to ask the question in another way:

Do the things that 'work', work for the reasons people say they work. Eg does lots of groundwork build respect because the horse recognises you are leader coz you can move his feet around - or is it purely about pressure/release so it's actually simply negative reinforcement that results in the horse behaving 'respectfully'.

 

[KP nut]

which method of training teaches horses most effectively?[/B]

Considering that behaving a certain way out of fear comes from a desire to avoid being hurt/otherwise threatened and put in danger in some way (from the horse's point of view) and behaving to please comes from knowing that a reward follows a certain behaviour.

There was an experiment in which horses had to find their way through a maze to get to some food. Some were punished for wrong turns, some were rewarded for right turns and some were left to figure it out on their own. Punished horses took longer than horses who were left alone. They made fewer errors but they dithered at junctions as they were reluctant to risk getting it wrong. I guess how this translates to general horse training depends on the kind of horse you want. If you want a horse that waits for instructions and never thinks for itself, you might choose a punishment based model. If you want a horse who is willing to offer behaviours that you might not have asked for, then reward might be better. There are potential surprises though with horses that think for themselves. Mark RAshid tells a lovely story about a horse who had learnt to yield to pressure. When he backed him , the horse lay down! Logical eh!!

 

[Wally]

Fear has no part to play when I train my lot.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, set you and the horse up to succeed.

 

[Francis Burton]

Interesting thread.

Yes, it is!

How would the following be classified in behavioural terms?

Do you mean using the terms above? Unless you're looking at a single interaction by itself, I think there will tend to be a mix of the different processes going on. Also, all the above terms are to do with learning - i.e. changing behaviour - so if that isn't happening then these terms may not be appropriate.

Making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult?

A mixture of negative reinforcement, punishment and (possibly) reward.

Using assertive body language to a bargy horse?

Depending on what is actually going on, there could be an element of punishment. Or the horse may decide, based on past experience, that barging won't gain anything with someone who is behaving assertively.

Using passive/non threatening body language for a scared horse?

With what result? Mainly desensitization with some reward perhaps, but with negative reinforcement and/or reward going on too if you are actually getting the horse to do something. Or the horse may already have learned not to be scared of someone who is showing non-threatening body language.

Join up?

Mainly negative reinforcement, with some desensitization perhaps (at least for a first-time join up).

In all the above, there also could well be a bit of classical conditioning (see below) going on at the same time.

Is there a difference between purely behavioural approaches and those that use human-horse communication/relationship. Or can those also be understood behaviourally?

I think there is a difference, but "learning theory" is always going to be an important part of the story.

I think there are few more categories of behavioral approaches that are crucial with a flight animal:

Systematic desensitisation: presenting a feared stimulus (eg a plastic bag) in a graded way until the horse's anxiety response fades and the horse becomes comfortable with it.

Habituation: the final extinguishing of the anxious response

And there's also:

Shaping: positive reinforcement of naturally occurring behaviours to build up
behavioural sequences gradually.

Here's a few more:

Imprinting - learning occurring in the period after birth where the foal learns about its dam (including recognition). This is similar to, but probably not exactly the same as, what happens to chicks and other birds.

Flooding - a form of desensitization in which a horse is confined or restrained so that it cannot escape while being exposed repeatedly to the stimulus, until the horse habituates to stimulus.

Other kinds of learning involve forming an association between two events.

Classical conditioning - Here a horse learns that a signal or cue, initially of no significance, is followed by an event or stimulus which is significant (and which produces a response). For example, in the wild, the appearance of a predator may be preceded by the alarm call of a bird. By learning this natural signal, a horse's ability to survive may be increased. In the domestic setting, a horse may similarly learn to associate the sound of buckets with feeding. An example in training is the teaching of riding aids such as the voice.

All the positive/negative reinforcement/punishment combinations given above are forms of "operant conditioning" - or "trial and error learning" to give it a less jargony name. Here the performance of a behaviour is changed by the consequences of that behaviour, which may be pleasant or unpleasant.

Observational learning (learning by watching other horses or people doing things) - there a real dearth of hard evidence for this in the horse, but I don't see why it can't happen at some level.

Or to ask the question in another way:

Do the things that 'work', work for the reasons people say they work. Eg does lots of groundwork build respect because the horse recognises you are leader coz you can move his feet around - or is it purely about pressure/release so it's actually simply negative reinforcement that results in the horse behaving 'respectfully'.

I am strongly inclined to think it's the latter. At least, the behaviour seems to me to be fully explicable in terms of learning theory. Interactions between dominant and subordinate horses can also be explained this way, without having to suppose the horse experiences the same kind of thoughts and feelings of respect that we do. However, the end result is behaviour that looks "respectful" to us. The same would apply to other forms of leadership.

I can see why people find the language of leadership and respect attractive though.

 

[Francis Burton]

To address Puzzles' original question...

ANOTHER brain teaser from Puzzley wuzzley!

The question is - which method of training teaches horses most effectively?

To fear or to please aren't the only options, of course. Horses are highly motivated to seek comfort - physical and psychological - and that explains why "pressure and release" (negative reinforcement) is so effective in the right hands, (even) when the levels of pressure are reduced to a whisper. A horse does not have to be DIStressed (over-stressed) in order to learn - in fact, fear is the enemy of learning. That doesn't mean that horses are not also motivated by reward, which is just as natural a part of horses' lives.

Which method is most effective? That surely depends on the individual and what is being taught. All have a place, in my opinion - even punishment (bearing in mind that punishment can also be whisperlike).

I think it's important to try and achieve a happy balance between methods.

An approach involving a lot of punishment is almost certain to produce bad results. It's hopeless at communicating what you want the horse to do, as opposed to what you want it not to do. It may make a fearful horse more afraid or an aggressive horse more aggressive - emotional states that are not conducive to learning! Overuse of aversives generally, for negative reinforcement as well as punishment, is liable to change a horse's attitude in ways that are acceptable to some but unacceptable to others (including me).

Reward shouldn't be neglected - it doesn't have to be in the form of food or treats, but it can be without any ill effect, done right. "Rewards" given indiscriminately may sweeten a horse's attitude and so make training easier, but it is a much more effective training tool if it is targetted to reward specific behaviours or thoughts.

 

[levi1739]

All these different interpretations of punishment are a matter of interpretation in my way of thinking and much to "general" for me. Seem's to me that all those things kind of come together at some point when training horses.

One thing for sure though, "fear" is pretty natural to a horse and I never want to take it away from them. Lot's of good horses are "messed up" by having "fears" (and the natural reaction to them) taken out of a horse.

It's for this reason that Bob Millers imprinting ideas are so controversial to many horsemen.






Keep on, keepin on

Jack

 

[Francis Burton]

All these different interpretations of punishment are a matter of interpretation in my way of thinking and much to "general" for me.

How do you mean? Seems to me posters haven't presented widely divergent interpretations of punishment, so far.

Seem's to me that all those things kind of come together at some point when training horses.

All the different kinds of learning? Yes, I think so!

One thing for sure though, "fear" is pretty natural to a horse and I never want to take it away from them. Lot's of good horses are "messed up" by having "fears" (and the natural reaction to them) taken out of a horse.

It's for this reason that Bob Millers imprinting ideas are so controversial to many horsemen.

I wouldn't want to take fear away from a horse by flooding it. And if there was a way of taking all fear out of horses, I wouldn't want to do that either. That would produce a zombie-horse - something that wasn't a horse at all.

Yet there are lots of specific but natural fears that I do want my horses to lose - fear of clippers, fear of paper bags on the road, fear of the inside of trailers, fear of me - for the sake of safety and convenience. I'm not sure how they would be "messed up" by not having those fears. Can you explain please what you have in mind?