Psychology of Learning Blog

I loved getting to hold a rat which is something I did not expect at the beginning of the class. I had never held a rat before, but I really enjoyed being around Habibti and watch her move around in the operant box. I do not have any complaints about the project. I thought it was well structured and very adaptable to our work schedules. The only improvement I would make would be turn the blog post of each FR schedule into one big summary about the project. It was hard trying not to repeat myself making a blog for 15 different sessions when the only thing that changed was the number of pushes it took to get reinforcement. I overcame all my misconceptions about rats. I learned they can be adorable and soft and can learn very quick.

Overall, David and I did not experience any major problems with training Habibti. Our schedules would conflict with feeding on occasion but communicating with each other helped keep us on top of feeding and taking care of Habibti. Another problem we had was trying to weigh Habibti in the metal bowl. When we first tried to weigh her with Dr. Trench, Habibti jumped out of the bowl and barricaded herself behind the trash cans in the corner of the room. After Habibti tried to make a run for it several more times, Dr. Trench gave David and I a plastic bowl to put her in while we weighed her. Other than that, the training sessions went smoothly and Habibti did a good job of going through each FR schedule.

David and I put Habibti on the extinction protocol again for the last training session and this time she only pushed the lever 276 times. Habibti was active in the beginning trying to get food but quickly lost interest after the first 10 to 15 minutes of the session. Both training sessions showed instances of extinction burst. Habibti would stop then push the lever a bunch of times in a row then would stop and groom herself for a few minutes then try again before stopping altogether. The second day of extinction showed some spontaneous recovery at first, but once Habibti realized she would not get food she stopped interacting with the lever.

David and I are going to put Habibti on the extinction session now that she has consistently hit over 1,000 lever pushes on FR20. Habibti began pushing the lever as soon as she got into the operant box but never received any reinforcement. She pushed the lever 784 times and did not receive any pellets which confused her. Habibti would push then stop and wander around the box then go back to push the lever. Her interactions with the lever were very inconsistent throughout the extinction session.

And on the third day, Habibti hit 1,238 lever pushes and received 61 pellets on her final FR training day! Now that Habibti has consistently shown that she can press the lever, it is time for David and I to put her on extinction training.

Habibti was put on FR20 again and she got 1,255 lever pushes and received 62 pellets the second time around. Habibti upped her number of lever pushes by 100 and kept pushing the lever until she heard food drop in the feeder! David and I are going to put her on FR20 one more time to see how she does the third time.