Nuts or not nuts, it is Skinners operant theory and not an incorrect variation of it.

An example prolific throught several mammal species, including humans, when a suckeling infant feels hungry it cries, thats a communication to its mother to feed it (remove the discomfort of hunger) or in the case of humans remove some other discomfort (wet). The discomfort benefts the infant because it makes it communcate a biological need is present, it's mother feeds it and removes the discomfort maintaining a healthy bilogical state during early growth of the body, or change pad helping it keep skin health & hygene.

So how does that translate to dog training?

I think there is an inadvertant myth throughout dog training that operant learning theory is just to do with dog training applied to the dog by humans, thats not the case.

Operant is actively present and learning occures as a result of its presence from when the first memory cells of any animal develop combined with the development of the five senses, in the case of an artifical learning system the animal will already have massive experience of 1,2, & 3 of the operants.

The vast majority of prolific operant learning takes place in the early years or months, depending on species. An adult human dos not learn masses of new things. All succesfull ( to the individual) adult human behaviour is avoidence behaviour, it has learned what are aversives to itself and has learned how not to make aversives occure.

Example, if you go out for a meal you will be avoiding many hundreds of food dishes you learned you did not enjoy at some point. Because of past learning you can go out and enjoy what you like and avoid things you know you do not like, pleasure seeking behaviours originate in learned avoidance behaviour, because that has been learned through operants most adults enjoy a night out instead of ordering food they suddenly find they do not like, the same applies to all species, not just dogs.

Which site is being referrred to originally, please?

Where did you get your information? Sources, please.

You could also say that the pleasure has been learnt via positive reinforcement - the pleasure of finding good food, enjoyable food, as well as learning that some food tastes unpleasant. We also learn via classical conditioning.

It's really not all about negative reinforcement (and pos. punishment,which usually comes first).

This is one of the best sites on the web for learning about operant conditioning.

http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/

It's easy to understand and follows learning theory accurately.

The "pop quiz" shows just how many ways in life both people and animals are reinforced or punished, it's quite interesting as well as being entertaining

It also shows that life is not all about negative reinforcement, but the whole OC side of things; the last question/answer is particularly interesting, as despite illness, no learning has taken place.



Wys
x

Here is my example of what I believe to be more relevant that likes or dislikes, if you go out for a meal and order your favourite dish and someone slaps you, and if this continues every time you order that meal, you will soon learn, to think of your favourite dish and associate it with said slap and either become nervous at the thought or avoid even ordering it.
Likes and dislikes don't come into it, the pain felt by ordering your favourite meal will change your perception of ordering that meal, do you want to get slapped again for ordering it or just avoid ordering it?? Suppression does not necessarily mean you don't still want your favourite dish, you just avoid it to avoid the slap. Therefore you aren't changing your mind just your behaviour to avoid the slap and from time to time you will test the waters to see if the slap still occurs and at some point may be worth the slap as you want it so much, and may require harder or more slaps.
Put this in the context of dogs and e-collars, the dog is avoiding the painful stimuli, and suppressing its behaviour not necessarily correcting it.

Or you may get so angry at the slapping, you turn on the slapper and resoundly slap them back, lots and lots before grabbing your meal and running off with it.

Wys
x

I am not trying my experiment on you then

Wys
x