I’m currently reading an article from the Journal Of Experimental Analysis Of Behavior regarding stimulus control experiments, especially those of Guttman and Kalish (1956). This study was about the visual discrimination training of pigeons to better understand the concept of stimulus generalization.
The authors of the article cite the definition of stimulus control as described by Terrance (1966): “Stimulus control refers to the extent to which the value of an antecedent stimulus determines the probability of a conditioned response. It is measured as a change in response probability that results from a change in stimulus value. The greater the change in response probability, the greater the degree of stimulus control with respect to the continuum being studied.”
Got that? LOL.
Some things to notice.
First, I never have any students that would want to wade through this article. It is too technical, specific in nature dealing with pigeons, thickly worded with technical terms and too loaded with references to other related studies.
Second, it takes a lot of time and effort to study, understand and figure out how to apply scientific papers. Some research papers are well researched and written. Others end up being discredited or are poorly written or translated.
Third, this paper was about the responses of pigeons, not dogs. Most scientific experiments are not done with dogs. Further, the purpose of the research is often used as a surrogate because the experiments couldn’t ethically be done with humans.
My point?
There is no “scientific” method for training dogs. I think it is not accurate for anyone to claim their dog training methods are scientific. There is no comprehensive dog training school, book or program that offers instructions on how to train a dog solely based upon experimental results. Instead, what is generally done, is that research slowly filters down to the streets. But along the way, bad research and bad concepts also filter down. Things are done with dogs that don’t work or are bad for them.
A side point is where various groups advocate for this or that method, citing research that they have never read or implying that the research has definitively proven that this or that method is good or bad. Thus, we have this raging battle about “all positive”, “balanced”, “Nepopo”, “dog whispering”, and such. Dog trainers and others are cherry picking this or that science, or making up their own science, to claim results and ethics. The reality is that no comprehensive set of experiments have been done to train dogs of all types from scratch.
So, why read scientific research? It gives a dog trainer ideas about issues they might encounter with the dogs they encounter. I used this article with a student yesterday to explain, using a simpler definition of “stimulus control” to explain why their puppy wasn’t ready for the dog show ring. Their 5-month-old Vizsla puppy puts her nose to the ground when on the field, does a puppy greeting when meeting new people, and the puppy can’t yet reliably and properly “stack” to display her body conformation. What was being recommended by another trainer was to put a choke chain on the puppy and correct her for dropping her nose to the ground. They didn’t want to do that and wanted my advice. I explained that the pup didn’t “know” specifically what to do in that circumstance (meaning the dog needs more training), that the dog’s immaturity will melt away over time, and they needed to be able to better direct, motivate and lead their puppy in the show ring because they were novices at this kind of thing. Rather than the dog specifically being trained to act in the desired way in the show ring, their untrained dog was doing what puppies do. They didn’t have stimulus control, in other words, the dog wasn’t well enough trained and mature enough to do it the way they want it to look like. Corrections might have made the puppy lift her head off the ground, but the likely side effect would be a defeated looking expression in the dog because of being bullied instead of trained to stack appropriately.
By briefly explaining the goals of the pigeon study, I could then relate that to what they needed to do with their dog. Sometimes it is easier to give a student an example or parable from another situation to help them understand what they are facing with their dog. To me that is how dog trainers can take science and use it in the streets, without claiming their methods are “scientific”.