Day 3 of training, Lil Sebastian started much more positively than expected. She immediately went to the lever and propped her paws on it. She was only reinforced for propping her paws on the lever, and for actually pressing the lever, which was set up to automatically deliver a pellet if this event occurred. Lil Sebastian was easily distracted and would have pauses between getting reinforced at the beginning of the session. After 16 minutes, Lil Sebastian ceased from her distractions and finally pressed the lever. From then on out, almost all her time was spent near the lever, or pressing the lever. At the end of the 30 minutes, Lil Sebastian had pressed the lever 46 times, so clearly an association between the lever and the presentation of food was formed. I reinforced Lil Sebastian 43 times. The cumulative record for this day is below:
(Cumulative Record for Training Day 3)
On Day 4, we loaded up FR1 to assure Lil Sebastian's association with the lever pressing and food before starting on FR2. Initially, Lil Sebastian spent time roaming the box and only pressed the lever intermediately. After 5 minutes, Lil Sebastian focused most her time on the lever and pressed the lever frequently, with only small pauses between presses. For the next 10 minutes, lever pressing continued uninterrupted and I felt confident FR1 was established. Near 20 minutes into training, Lil Sebastian started to become less interested in the lever because cleaning, and chewing the bottom of the cage became interchangeable with lever pressing. Because of the loss of interest in the lever, I ended the session early around 21 minutes. Lil Sebastian had pressed the lever 100 times, and I reinforced her for only 15 times. Below is the cumulative record for FR1
(Cumulative Record for Training Day 4 [FR1])
Shaping obviously blended into FR1 a bit, but I think this was good because it made the learning process more seamless. Below is a video of Lil Sebastian lever pressing on FR1 schedule!
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