Captains Log Day 0002: Magazine Training

Goal: Today's goal was to train my rat to associate the sound of food hitting the hopper and the light going off in the box. This process is called classical conditioning. The purpose of this is to make sure that my rat will associate the sound/light with food and thus the sound/light will become an immediate reward when she does the correct action.

Procedure: My rat was placed on a food deprivation diet to get her down to 217 grams. The food deprivation was used because it motivates her to want the food that is given during training. In today's training session we used the hand switch to deliver the reinforcements. We would give our rat a reinforcement every time she would move away from the hopper so that she would hear an see the sound and then return to the hopper.

Results: Our rat began to come to the hopper whenever we pressed the hand switch. We tested this by letting her go to the corner then pressing the hand switch. Once the sound/light went off she would go to the hopper and eat. Today we gave her a total of 61 pellets and the session lasted 14:33 minutes.

Discussion: Today she seems to have gained an association between the sound/light and food in the hopper. If this is so then tomorrow when we start shaping we can begin to mover her to the bar.

Cumulative Record