2014 Conference Program

The 6th annual

Art and Science of Animal Training Conference

Saturday, March 22nd, 2014
University of North Texas
Denton, Texas
9:00am – 6:30pm

Program

Dr. Jaak Panksepp (Keynote Speaker): The scientific case for emotional feelings in other animals: SEEKING new ‘laws of affect’ that control animal learning/training

Ken Ramirez: Working with groups of animals

Alexandra Kurland: Listening with your hands and other observational skills

Kay Laurence: Examining 1% of the learning cycle that can add 100% success to the result

Steve White: Your dog ain’t so special! Why discipline-specific training methods might be slowing you down

Phung Luu: Understanding behavioral momentum and it’s applications to establish effective behavioral change

Bob Bailey: Teaching trainers applied behavior analysis: A personal journey from the rat lab to the chicken workshop

Abstracts

Dr. Jaak Panksepp (Keynote Speaker): The Scientific Case for Emotional Feelings in Other Animals: SEEKING New ‘Laws of Affect’ that Control Animal Learning/Training

Subcortical social-affective networks of mammalian brains have been evolutionarily designed to control learning and thinking in higher brain regions. Thus the neural understanding of core affective processes, homologous in all mammals, is of critical importance for appreciating how our higher mental processes, and social lives, are constructed through life experiences. Enormous advances have been made in the last few decades in understanding how primal emotions are organized in the brain, and how primary-process emotions control secondary-process learning and memory, which provide the essential ingredients for tertiary-process higher-order mental activities, which, unlike emotional states, are almost impossible to study neuroscientifically. This presentation will focus not only on how emotional feelings are created in the brain and how this provides a new understanding of the foundational nature of consciousness but also how shifting affective states control learning. The possible underlying mechanisms of clicker training will be highlighted. This knowledge is also helping us re-conceptualize the scientific foundations of psychiatry, which may lead to advances in the treatment of emotional disturbances in both humans and other animals. This presentation will also briefly focus on three new antidepressant therapies that have emerged from cross-species affective neuroscience research.

Ken Ramirez: Working with groups of animals

Often when we talk about training, we discuss working with individual animals. But the challenges we face when working with two or more animals can be complex. This seminar will focus on strategies for working with more than one animal and explore various techniques for introducing new animals into the group.

Alexandra Kurland: Listening with your hands and other observational skills

Good trainers are good observers. We need to be in order to find the many small steps that lead to learning success. We’re a highly visual species so when we think about observing something most of us think in terms of visual information. The word itself – observe – comes from the Latin observare meaning “to watch”. There are other ways to observe behavior. When working with horses both auditory and tactile information become important. Tactile information not only provides direct feedback, it also helps a handler becomes a better visual observer. This presentation will be very interactive. You won’t just be passively observing the presentation. You’ll be actively participating in it.

Kay Laurence: Examining 1% of the learning cycle that can add 100% success to the result

We are attracted to listening to the “events” in the learning cycle, such as the cue, the behaviour and the reinforcement process. We should take our eyes off these points to examine the moments of interaction between these events: the very small 1% moments that can significantly alter the flow of the cycle and the experience for the learner.

Integrating learner choice, allowing for orientation before the reinforcement pattern and matching the cycle to suit the individual are all valuable strategies that can make or break your teaching success. Teach yourself to employ learner focused learning, not just following established protocols.

Steve White: Your dog ain’t so special! Why discipline-specific training methods might be slowing you down

Discipline-specific cultures are insidious things. Successful practitioners become models for followers who hope to achieve similar results in the same discipline. Methods are replicated with painstaking precision generation after generation but too often results painfully disappoint. Why? Simply because the followers’ focus on replicating the guru’s method to get guru’s results carries the implication that failure comes from flawed execution rather than flaws in the method. At the same time the perception that the discipline’s demands are so unique that methods must be similarly discipline-specific creates barriers to innovation and healthy inter-discipline cross-pollenization.

In this session we’ll examine instances in which trainers improved performance by adopting and adapted methods from other disciplines. From this we’ll extract the common threads in their success and weave a system for successfully finding and incorporating new techniques and tools.

Hint: There’s only one expert most qualified to tell you what your dog is prepared to deliver.

Phung Luu: Understanding behavioral momentum and it’s applications to establish effective behavioral change

“Behavioral momentum” is understood as two parallel concepts in science and animal training. One concept deals with reinforced behavior, as related to rate of reinforcement, developing resistance to change in the presence of interference (T. Nevin). The second concept deals with achieving low-probability behavior through meticulous pairing with high-probability behavior (F. Mace). We will explore these concepts as they are studied in the laboratory and applied in the field. Understanding these concepts will provide us with better skills to request and shape for increased compliance and challenging behaviors in birds and other species.

Bob Bailey: Teaching trainers applied behavior analysis: A personal journey from the rat lab to the chicken workshop

Fifty years ago animal trainers using applied behavioral technology called what they did, “Operant Conditioning.” Today, many trainers call what they do “Applied Behavior Analysis,” with emphasis on “Applied.” The road from “Operant Conditioning” to “Applied Behavior Analysis” has not always been smooth.  Even today there is often tension between academicians and “in the trenches” animal trainers, which is likely caused as much by inherent differences in environmental working conditions, and use of language as any major difference in the understanding of the three-term contingency or of learning driven by consequence. Dr. Bailey discusses his experiences and evolution as a teacher of behavioral technology.  Behavioral technology has advanced and the skill and knowledge base of many, perhaps most, animal trainers has increased over his more than 50 years of teaching. Dr. Bailey presents his view that the advancement of behavior technology, and the improved skills of the trainers practicing the technology, has led to applications not practical, or perhaps not even possible, using older methods and procedures.