Part 1
Animal learning occurs when an experience connected to an animal’s environment causes it to voluntarily or involuntarily modify its behavior. In this case, animal behavior refers to any action performed by the muscles because of signals from the animal’s nervous system. Modifications can occur through several methods, and these methods can be categorized under umbrella categories of spatial learning, associative learning, and cognition. However, all forms of modification which define learning share a dependence on how the properties of the animal’s environment influence its memories and how the animal’s responses change as a result of those memories.
Associative learning is a broad category of learning in which an animal “associates”, or connects, a behavior to a memory or experience that pertains to its environment. This encompasses multiple forms of learning, but two notable forms of associative learning include operant conditioning and classical conditioning.
A situation subject to operant conditioning causes an experience in response or consequence of the behavior. That experience causes the animal to associate a strong positive or negative experience with that behavior, and based on the association created, it modifies when and if that behavior occurs. It should be noted that operant condition depends on an experience that occurs after the first time that behavior is performed with regard to the environment; the experience does not occur before the behavior.
When the experience occurs before the behavior, the animal undergoes classical conditioning. In classical conditioning, an animal associates an experience with a behavior through the experience’s repeat presence before that behavior can occur. Although the experience is not initially tied to the occurrence of the behavior, as it is in operant conditioning, its repeat presence when that behavior occurs causes the animal to involuntarily, subconsciously, associate both experience and behavior with one another. In classical conditioning, a behavior occurs in response to an experience that precedes it, but in operant conditioning, the behavior occurs first and foremost to the experience, and the behavior is done voluntarily, of the animal’s own will.
Part 2
Zoos train their animals to learn specific movement behaviors, though these behaviors are trained for a variety of reasons. Many of these behaviors are trained to give zookeepers the opportunity to study the animals’ health: for example, an animal may be trained to move its arm or stand so that its paw or stomach is exposed, giving zookeepers the ability to study for signs of illness, pregnancy, or to take samples of their blood. Zoos may also train animals to efficiently, healthily, and procedurally feed them, as these health practices frequently coincide with feeding treats or balancing the diet and nutrients an animal receives. One more reason why a zoo might train its animals is to acheive non-natural, novel behaviors: this would include “tricks” and behaviors used in a performance for zoo visitors at a show or exhibit.
Many zookeeper’s trainings take advantage of pre-existing behaviors to make the training easier for the animals to adopt. However, a zookeeper would also be able to train an animal to produce a new behavior in a similar manner to how they would reproduce a behavior. Zookeepers typically rely on operant conditioning to associate the desired behavior with a positive experience. In order to produce this behavior, especially if it is a novel behavior, a zookeeper may break the behavior into several steps, including what it would take to reach the first steps of the action. For example, the zookeeper may first need the animal to approach the fence where they want the behavior performed, then to make direct contact with it, and lastly to perform the behavior. Even then, the behavior may be complex and need to be broken down into steps to gradually comprehend how to perform the behavior correctly. At each step, the zookeeper reinforces that this is a step towards the behavior and a correct step towards achieving it by giving the animal some form of reward. This reward would be something important to them or already associated with something positive, such as food, toys, or treatment that the animal enjoys. The animals associate this reward with performing the behavior successfully, and as they are repeatedly asked to perform it, they are encouraged to cooperate, to complete each step, and to perfect the zookeepers’ desired behavior.
Even if an animal does not cooperate through training, zookeepers do not directly punish them or negatively enforce their training. Often, the animals are allowed to do as they please and they can return to finish their training later. Although a worse response while training may result in a smaller reward, such as less pieces of food than if they had cooperated perfectly, the animals are never hurt for being uncooperative. The zookeepers avoid negative reinforcement, especially through punishments which would hurt the animal or through forced cooperation. Instead, they prioritize encouraging the animal to cooperate, and they prioritize the animal voluntarily cooperating with them.
Part 3
The experiment presented by Skinner repeats a specific procedure to study the behavior of a pigeon under operant conditioning. In this experiment, a hungry pigeon is placed inside a cage for several minutes on a daily, routine basis. While the pigeon is in the cage. an observer swings and secures a food hopper at the edge of the cage during specific intervals to allow it to eat from the hopper. These intervals occur periodically through the time the pigeon is contained, last for five seconds, and occur only based on time and length, without regard to how the pigeon in the cage is acting when the hopper is swung. The hopper is then withdrawn, and the process is repeated. As the experiment continues, observers study the pigeons and note any repeated behavior, especially outside of further intervals.
In Skinner’s experiment, operant conditioning arose in the form of “strange” behaviors, such as a rhythmic counter-clockwise turn, repeated “pendulum” or swinging motions of the body, or attempts to peck towards the cage’s floor without making contact with it. Skinner explained that operant conditioning occurred because the reinforcing experience, the intervals in which the food hopper swung into the cage, and pigeons were able to eat from it, occurred as the pigeons were performing a given behavior. This occurred by chance, not because the observers saw that specific behavior and limited the food hopper to swing when it was performed. The intervals were consistent and frequent enough that there were many points in which the food hopper swung into the cage as the strange behavior was performed, and the pigeons were able to feed soon after performing it. The pigeons began to associate their behavior with a “reward” of food. As a result, later into the experiment, in-between intervals in which the food hopper was available, the pigeons would reproduce the associated behavior; they had “learned” that the food hopper would arrive when they performed a specific behavior and repeat it to try to reacquire the food reward.