Unexpected Expectation Testing Episodic Memory

A step-by-step guide of how each theory of learning can be applied to allow a dog or cat to learn a desired behaviour

This experimented sought out to answer the question, “Will a dog be able to sense when its owner is coming home during five days of routine departure and arrival and five days of non-routine departure and arrival?” This lead to the creation of a hypothesis, “If a dog’s owner departs from the same location to arrive home for a week and departs from a different location to arrive home for another week then the dog will show signs of searching for the owner such as barking at windows, stillness, and sniffing the air no matter when the owner departs and arrives because the dog will use its innate sense of smell to track the owner and use pack mentality to detect when the owner is arriving.” in order to craft an experiment. Based upon the data that

With this project, I will determine how much a dog's age affects their understanding of a spatial relationship between objects. To do this there will be many test by seeing how different aged dogs react to their surroundings while a treat is in their presence.

They have connected their actions to the same instincts that toddlers have. Theresa Fisher says, “Behavior research supports the recent neuroscience too. According to Andics, dogs interact with their human caregivers in the same way babies do their parents. When dogs are scared or worried, they run to their owners, just as distressed toddlers make a beeline for their parents.” This quote demonstrates how dogs’ behavior resembles toddlers. Toddlers act purely on instincts. They do not know how to talk yet so they cannot think about their actions. This is the same for dogs. They instinctively run to their owners when they get scared. This proves that dog’s act based on genetic

Social learning is a monumental concept within animal learning. For animals who lack the ability to communicate verbally, they must find other ways to discover food sources, escape predators, and learn acceptable social behaviours. Social Learning involves knowledge that is gained through observing or interacting with another individual or its products (Heyes, 2011). This definition is distinct from teaching as this type of learning does not involve the demonstrator intending to communicate information to the observer (Heyes, 2011). Therefore, social learning can be understood in terms of “copying behaviour” (Laland, 2004). However, copying others is not always a recipe for success (Laland, 2004).

It is often said that a dog is a man’s best friend. In the last 14,000 years, dogs have accompanied man by helping him hunt, guard, and protect. In our modern world, dogs help us combat in war, search-and-rescue, guide the blind, deaf, discapacitated, rehabilitate patients in therapy, aid law enforcement, and are part of our family as beloved pets (Coren). Although canine superstars such as Lassie, Old Yeller, and Rin Tin Tin portray the perfect dog we all want in our lives, these ideals are far from the truth. Many first-time dog owners expect dogs to know behaviors such as how to walk on a leash, not bite, not destroy the house, and in addition to many others. In reality, dogs must be trained on what their handler wants them to do. It is

Mackintosh (1997) starts his paper with a critique of radical behaviourism. In the 1960s, Pavlovian and Instrumental conditionings were main theories to explain animal and human behaviour. However, with cognitivism coming into the picture, learning theory has dramatically improved. Animal theorists started paying more attention to animal cognition, and nothing but well came from it, as researchers

A number of tests were compiled and carried out to assess to what extent the dog could understand human language. The first comprised of simply requesting that the dog retrieve a certain toy, this ended with a 92.5% success rate. But to make it more difficult they added objects that Rico had not seen before, then ask for that object with a word he wasn't familiar with. 70% of the time he would associate the unknown word with the unknown object.

Classical conditioning is often associated with physiologist Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with the salivating dog (Hutchinson, 2015). This experiment focused on conditioning the dog to associate food with the bell while salivating, and eventually salivates when the bell is rung even without the presence of food. Operant conditioning theory is changed behavior as the result of a reinforcement (Hutchinson, 2015). In our society, we associate positive reinforcements with compliments, smiles, high-fives in order to encourage a behavior more. Negative reinforcement involves jail, detention, and grounding, and this is to stop a behavior from continuing. A cognitive social learning theory states that behavior can be learned through observations, beliefs, expectations, and imitation of others (Hutchinson, 2015). A major difference between cognitive social learning theory and the others, is a lack of manipulation to encourage the individual to follow through with a behavior. Rather, cognitive social learning theories suggest that a change in thinking can ultimately result in a change in behavior (Hutchinson, 2015).

(1963) bobo doll studies has been discussed to demonstrate that experiments that lack ecological validity still have influential results. Nevertheless, even though the experiment was controlled, and results were valid it is absent of telling whether the children would go on to demonstrate the behaviour in the real world. Subsequently, Skinners (1979) experiments were deliberated to show that ecological validity was deficient, however, the outcome of observing animals learning behaviour in their natural habitat would not have been controlled enough to discover if animals can learn behaviour. Finally, Loftus and Palmer (1974) experiments were considered to show that ecological validity can still be maintained under control conditions but this can affect how participants answer the question. Nevertheless, this is so that ethical issues are not

We started this experiment by conducting magazine training with Sniffy. The Magazine training technique was used in order for Sniffy to make the association between the sound of the food hopper with food. Every time Sniffy approached the food hopper a food pallet would be delivered through the pressing of the space bar. We waited until the Sound-Food bar association on the Operant Associations mind window reached 3/4’s of the way. This meant that the association between sound and food was strong enough to begin helping shape Sniffy’s behavior. This file was saved to be used later in the training of Sniffy to press the bar himself.

Every time your canine would display a fantastic behavior or executes a command correctly, you're supposed to press

Though it is unlikely I will ever get answers to those questions, scientists have made some exciting new discoveries regarding how dogs communicate with us and each other. This research has provided me with on exceptionally valuable fact: I know whether

As a dog owner, I know how important it is to teach your pets how to behave. Yet, it is important to understand how learning works so that you can develop a strategy to properly and quickly teach your dog. The example of training a dog to roll over is a great model for analysing the aspects of learning involved with this process. Understanding how operant conditioning works and how to reinforce a desired response to that stimuli will help trainers effectively teach dogs. Psychologists, such as Myers (2013), define learning as the process of acquiring new knowledge and behaviors. In this case we are specifically discussing the acquisition of a certain response to a stimulus. The stimulus is the trainer’s command and the desired behavior is the dog to roll over onto his back. These ideas all are based on Edward L. Thorndike’s principle called the law of effect, wherein he stated that behaviors followed by a positive outcomes are more likely to increase in probability. These are all important components of the learning process, especially on the level of training a dog or instilling a simple behavior.

This project was written to determine whether animals will dance according to, two separate kinds of training. The first type being a food reward and the second being an affectionate reward. Our paper is based on a study conducted at Butler University by students in the Department of Psychology. This study was performed on 270 cats and dogs, but for this particular situation we cut the sample size to 119 cats and dogs. These cases were randomly selected to keep the data as accurate as possible. The additional articles that were examined looked at each type of training addressed in this study as well. Additional sources did not specifically address whether or not the animals danced but the obedience level between the types of training and simple tasks.