Pigeon Journal Article / Thread of the Day № 2: Clicker Training.

 The first  entry in this set of serial / threaded entries, intended as an aide to the academic study (or abstract review, at minimum) of pigeons, or, perhaps broader contexts, such as poultry, or avians, as a whole. The sets of serial entries are gathered and examined for the sake of extending the knowledge base and references / resources available for the sake of bettering the flocks and understanding their progress, potential, and current status in behavior, learning, sensory experience, genetics, and other pertinent subject areas, as the threads and series sets procure added and new material for review and study. 

On this day, I brought out my animal training clicker (I have two), and I signalled to the bird flock outside the local public library, where the birds have become accustomed to being fed, when I show up and haunch myself up on the ledge, in front of their lofty perch, above. Subsequently, the birds have developed identification and discriminatory perceptive capabilities, and they have routinely adjusted their behavioral customs, progressing from observing and waiting for food to be thrown out, to predicting that food will be thrown out (by me), and, thus, they now demonstrate a more pro-sociable behavioral custom, in flying down, around me, in anticipation of being fed. Identification and discrimination (which will be my second entry, or "zero" entry, since I'll be referencing a past article and related practical study, dating back one day. I'm simply starting the series with the second day's thread) was the initial (first) thread, which I haven't written (yet), but, chronologically, that subject was first examined, for the sake of reference and documentation purposes, for this series on my blog. 

Lynna C. Feng, Tiffani J. Howell, Pauleen C. Bennett

How clicker training works: Comparing Reinforcing, Marking, and Bridging Hypotheses

Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 181

, August 2016, Pages 34-40

In the case of citing and referencing this article, I was obviously drawn to the subject matter of a clicker being used in training animals (birds; pigeons). I was only able to access the abstract and snippets of the sections of the paper, highlighting the main study references and findings of the paper. Although the previous thread in the series (Identification and Discrimination) was noted, on this day, the authors cite the more classically foundational studies by B. F. Skinner, which are coined as the Theory of Operant Conditioning, which, essentially, in other words, allows the animals to identify and discriminate, in order to best operate within their (the animals') world. Skinner is widely regarded as the first scholar to thoroughly document this phenomena, and his work is customarily studied by Psychology 1 students in college, university, or Advanced Placement high school settings. The real-world corollary, for example, would be: I am currently at the hospital emergency room, waiting to be called; blogging, meanwhile. The other people's names do not have the same impact as my own name, when heard, being that there's far less conditioning associated with attachments and operant learning, within the context of the names of other people, whereas I have developed an operant signalling attachment to my own name, which feels automatic, to respond to. The goal, here, would be to train the birds, similarly, upon signals that they find contextually impactful, within their own lives. 

The next snippet that the abstract covers is: does a clicker facilitate animal training? In today's experience that I had with the birds at the library, the pigeons were scattered across two groups: one was perched in their customary lofty spot, and another group was attending a small feeding event, happening about 100 feet away. I clicked the clicker, several times, and, within some seconds that followed, some of the birds retreated from the smaller feeding event, and they started to fly over to me, thus signalling the other pigeons, at the feeding up the road, to follow suit. Now, at this point, the pigeons all gathered around me, expecting their customary meal of a rich, sweet, pastry-like rendition on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which, in this case, featured marshmallow creme, pumpkin spice syrup, and a powdered health drink, with green apple flavor, and some nutrients. I also included some powdered electrolytes which gave the birds some sodium and potassium. The pigeons are their meal that I fed them, which amounted to two or three sandwiches, for about 2 dozen or 30 birds, or so. 

The relevance I draw here, which the day's article abstract, for review, identifies, in this instance, as the Predictor Signal, was that the birds heard a curious signalling noise (the clicker), and, although unfamiliar, they predicted, accurately, that there would be their customary meal of the day, which they usually sit and wait for, at their perch, above the ledge, where I sit. The paper identifies that further training regimens, of a more intelligent and more meaningful nature can ensue, from building upon prior learned predictive signals that serve as the foundation for the subject's learning and understanding of acceptable and learnable behaviors. The snippet notes that Skinner's pigeons had learned to play ping pong, for example, and the paper also mentioned other animal species' learning and training activities that have successfully been achieved, through successful experimental developments.

A sneak peek at future Pigeon Learning Series study topics, with a video featuring B. F. Skinner's ping pong-playing pigeons.

 The next snippet touches upon three topics, which the article's abstract does not provide content on, so I can't comment on it. The topics are Reinforcing Hypothesis, Marking Hypothesis, and Bridging Hypothesis. I'm out of practice in my psychological studies, for reference, and associated terminology, so I can't very well infer the contexts and material, accurately, for these terms, absent of somehow gaining access to the full text of the article, which, at this point, I do not have. Yet, despite this, the snippets went forth, in suggesting that dopamine was perhaps the neurochemical (neurotransmitter) responsible for the underlying mechanisms of this broader contextual subject matter surrounding implementing a clicker in to the training regimens of, in my case, the pigeon flock at the library. Given this context established by the mention of dopamine, a much more broadly studied subject matter is referenced. In my case, there are several threads, pertaining to motivation and reward, the primary functions that dopamine affects, or, is affected by, in crafting the psychological nurturing environment for the birds, one of them being their routine sweet, rich meals, which provide physiological basis for their motivation to seek out my meal, rather than a new and less familiar feeding setting, up the road - the birds base their motivations upon the embedded predictions of that their standard meal will come, and that it will be the most rewarding meal to have, thus providing them a greater motivation to investigate the clicking noise, which, inevitably, signalled that I was there with their standard day's meal, which was, by now, customary, and the most rewarding meal available to them; as such, it was their preferred meal. 

Overall, I saw the clicker as a rich and impactful signalling tool and implementation, which I will continue to use, and study further threaded articles and publications for development of knowledge base and reference to use, with the birds flocks.