“Excel-Erated Learning” by Dr Pamela Reid

I finally read “Excel-Erated Learning” Dr Pamela Reid. It was a good refresher on Behaviorism (the study of conditioned behaviors, not animal behavior, that’s Ethology).

There is A LOT of misinformation about Behaviorism on the internet even though the research behind it is pretty cut and dry. It was good to read a book by someone with a PhD who didn’t cherry pick information and included chapters on punishment/ aversive control. She did make a few errors in her interpretation of research which was disappointing. But overall it’s a great read for a dog trainer who is looking to learn more about Behaviorism from a non-force free source.

Here are some of the errors she made:

She references Skinner and the Breelands research on operant conditioning when discussing how positive/negative reinforcement and postive/negative punishment works. In their research they were clear that they did not consider the feelings of the animal to be relevant at all. They just were measuring the increase and decrease in the likelihood of a behavior. 

Positive reinforcement: adding something to increase the likelihood of a behavior.

Negative reinforcement: removing something to increase the likelihood of a behavior 

Positive punishment: adding something to decrease the likelihood of a behavior 

 Negative punishment: removing something to decrease the likelihood of a behavior

However, Dr Reid describes operant conditioning to be contingent on a stimulus that makes the dog feel “good” or “bad.” This is a common misconception but skews and limits the user's understanding of operant conditioning. Feeling was never a factor, just likelihood. 

She references Breeland's study on how natural behaviors (raccoons rubbing food before eating and pigs rooting for food) prevents successful conditioning of an alternative, unnatural behavior in association with food. She refers to these natural behaviors as classically conditioned, failing to understand the difference between a conditioned behavior and an innate, genetically hard wired behavior. This is also a common issue I see with behaviorists specifically. Behaviorism claims that genetics, emotion, and environment do not impact behavior (we now know this is not true) and as a result this limits behaviorists perspective when they encounter natural behaviors.

In a section on deprivation she fails to acknowledge that there is a threshold in which withholding something the dog wants can become counterproductive. The dog can be so overstimulated, frustrated, and frantic that they cannot focus or learn. This threshold can occur before deprivation becomes dangerous or unhealthy. For example some dogs with a high food drive will not do well training on an empty stomach vs some dogs with a low food drive will train much better on an empty stomach.

She states that children and dogs lack so much impulse control that if you put a variety of food in front of them they will pick them at random, not selecting them based on preference. I think anyone with a dog or child knows this is not true. 

In her chapter on punishment she explains scenarios where “punishment” can actually reinforce behavior. She muddies the waters between what she personally perceives a “punishment” to be and the technical terminology for punishment within the confines of operant conditioning. Someone with a PhD should know better than to so flippantly switch between technical terminology and her own interpretation of a word outside of its scientific meaning. Very disappointing. Punishment in operant conditioning cannot reinforce a behavior, its definition is a stimuli that decreases the likelihood of a behavior. 

The examples she gives of “punishment” reinforcing a behavior is a further extension of her misunderstanding operant conditioning. Sometimes aversive stimuli can reinforce behavior because reinforcements and punishments are not contingent on how the animal feels. They are only contingent on if the behavior is more or less likely in the future. In her examples the “punishments” are actually positive and negative reinforcements. 

Overall a good book that I recommend. But as always if you really want to learn about a topic reading the source material is going to get you more accurate information than reading someone else’s interpretation of it.