E243: 로라 반아렌동크 보(Laura VanArendonk Baugh) - 행동 연쇄

I've written social, civil, and savvy about socialization for young dogs to prevent such issues. And I have written dragons, unicorns, chimeras, and clickers, uh, which is a children's book about using clicker training with fantastic beasts, like unicorns and dragons and werewolves and all the fun stuff. And, uh, and apparently I am incapable of writing any book with an easy to pronounce title, but that's, that's what I have. I haven't read the children's book, so maybe I'll have to pick it up. It's quick and easy. Well, I would hope so. I mean, but still, um, so I wanted to talk today about behavior change. Like I mentioned in the intro, I think it makes sense to probably start with the general definition. So can you tell us what a behavior change is? So, uh, so the, this is, so I need to preface this with this definition can change depending on what building you're standing in on which college campus. Okay. So, uh, uh, the way we are going to talk about behavior change today, uh, is a C a series or a sequence of behaviors linked together by cues such that one cue provides the reinforcement for the previously performed behavior. You will also hear sequences, uh, you know, and, and again, like these, these, these terms can be used differently in different fields of behavior science, neuroscience, et cetera. And we do not have time to get into that. And that's not really a productive argument for us to have today. Just, just if those terms do get, you do get used separately, just, you know, make sure we know what we're, what we're talking about today. We are talking about a series or sequence of behaviors such that one cue is the reinforcement for the previously performed behavior. Excellent. All right. So what are some examples of these things, these behavior chains that we might actually want to train? Yeah. So there's a lot, um, and, and my nerdy side would say that pretty much everything in life is actually a behavior chain, but that's not really helpful to break things down for. Uh, so a really common example that people might think of would be a retrieve, whether that's a formal or an informal retrieve. Um, my dog is going to run away from me. My dog is going to pick up the object. My dog is going to return to me. And then, you know, in an ideal world, the dog will hand me that object. It depends on how formal or informal this, this retrieve may be. Uh, but you know, and then if we actually break those behaviors down, you know, picking up the object is a lot of behaviors, you know, picking up the object and then turning and then coming back to me are all separate behaviors.

So we can actually get really nitpicky about these, but, um, that may just be a thing that nerds do, you know, over snacks and drinks. Um, but yeah, so this, so that I would say that's probably the easiest one to reference for a lot of people is think of a retrieve, whether it's formal or informal. And you can see all those different parts that go into one thing that we call a retrieve. Mm-hmm. What about unintentional behavior change? Things, you know, that we may not train on purpose or that we may even actively dislike. Do you want to talk a little bit about this? Oh my gosh, we do that all the time. So again, one that I see a lot is, uh, we have, we, we, we have a dog that's jumping on people. And so we teach our clients to teach the dog to sit, uh, to, to meet people. And this seems like a great idea and it's not a bad idea, but if we're not thinking about behavior chains, what we frequently end up with is a dog who runs up, jumps onto a person so that we can, we'll tell them to sit. So the dog will sit. So the dog can get reinforcement for sitting. And, um, that cue for sit is reinforcing the jumping up. And because we weren't thinking about behavior chains while we were working, we have unintentionally created a very, very effective and really solid behavior chain. And we will have this dog who gleefully bounces off my chest in order to get to sit for a treat. Yeah. And, um, yeah, so that, that can happen a lot. I've also seen, and, you know, just talking about, you know, reactive dogs and things. I've also seen the dog hit the end of the leash and bark so he can be asked to come back and touch a target or come into heel or do something like that. Again, we, because we're not considering how behavior chains work while we're trying to deal with other unwanted behaviors. I'm really glad you mentioned that example, because I think a lot of the time, um, the term behavior chain has a really strong association in people's minds specifically with sports. And we don't always think about some of the, um, less sport applications. How some of this filters in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. And, and honestly, like when we start. Think talking about behavior chains, it's usually in a, well, how do I fix my obedience retrieve or how do I, you know, competition healing is one long behavior chain and all of these things. And then when you start thinking happy behavior chain thoughts, everywhere you go, um, please send help. Uh, but then you start seeing, then you start seeing where like, again, like I said, everything is actually a behavior chain.

And suddenly some of these behaviors that did not seem to make sense, you know, I always treat him for sitting. Why does he keep jumping? Because you keep treating for sitting. He has to jump in order to get the treat for sitting. Right. And, um, and it's just, it's such an easy, slippery slope if we're not aware of, of what we're doing unintentionally. So, yeah. And if we don't stop to think about it, right. And really look at the behaviors. So for those that we do want, you know, kind of, how do you think about the process of training and behavior chain? What's your, I guess, kind of broad approach when you know there's something like that you want to teach? Uh, my general approach is to be really, really annoying to my poor students. So I emphasize, you know, so much the importance of building that foundation and spending more time on the foundation than you probably think you need because we really need to build this fluency. And then if you have those foundational pieces, the behavior chain will almost magically coalesce on its own. And, and this, this sounds a lot like wishful thinking, but go back to what is a behavior chain? It's a collection of fluent behaviors linked by really solid cues with good stimulus control. So if I have fluency and I have stimulus control, then I have a behavior chain. And, uh, where I think people start getting into trouble is we have mostly fluent behaviors and we have two out of four aspects of stimulus control or something. And then we start building our chains and that seems to work in the beginning, but it's not going to hold up long-term. And then we start thinking we have behavior chain problems. No, what we have is fluency problems or what we have is stimulus control problems. So, uh, so yeah, that's my process is just, no, spend more time on the beginning and then you can spend less time on the end. And, uh, and that's not the fun part. Nobody wants to do the sexy, sexy stimulus control practice, but, but that is what's going to hold your behavior chain together. So basically teach each little piece before you try and knit anything together. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Like each individual behavior and, and all the parts of each individual behavior. And, you know, again, like, you know, just because my dog does it on cue does not mean I have full stimulus control and this is not a stimulus control talk. So, you know, insert link here to alternate stimulus control talk, but, but, um, but that's the thing that people, you know, your, your behavior chain depends on stimulus control.

Stimulus control is the reinforcement for everything that's happening in your behavior chain. Uh, you know, it's, what's providing that positive reinforcement for the behaviors that are happening in the chain. So if I don't have good stimulus control, guess what? I don't have control over what's getting reinforced. If I don't have control over what's getting reinforced, we have chaos. That's like the whole, everything about training is control freaks controlling what's being reinforced. So, yeah. Okay. So that kind of feels fairly simple. You know, that's not, that's not crazy complicated. Right. So then where do we all muck it up? Why is it going to struggle with all this stuff? Um, you know, kind of what, what goes wrong? One of my favorite Bob Bailey quotes is it is simple, but it is not easy. And I think, um, behavior chains are a great example of that because literally it is about fluent behaviors with good stimulus control and that's it. That's really all I need. But then we do, as you say, muck it up quite a lot. Um, and, and frequently, you know, one of the, one of the easiest mistakes to make is what I mentioned already is like, we have mostly fluent behaviors. We have, we have a good start on stimulus control. And so we assume that those are going to hold up where they might not be as thoroughly tested as maybe I should have. The other thing, and, um, and this is one that I, uh, I, I think is deceptively tricky is we think the behavior that we see getting messed up is the behavior that is broken. And so we spend a lot of time working on that behavior. You know, why, why does he, why does he not bring the object to me in the retrieve or, you know, whatever it might be. And what's actually broken is a different behavior in the chain, because again, you're each, each of your behaviors, it's what's reinforcing the previous behavior or, you know, each of the cues is serving as reinforcement. So if there's something later in the chain, that's fuzzy, it's going to not be reinforcing something earlier in the chain. That's what we think is broken, but that's not the behavior that's actually broken. So, um, so I think that's, uh, probably the, the trickiest part of behavior chains is identifying where the actual breakdown is because it's often, sometimes it's the one that you see messed up, you know, that can, that can happen. Um, but sometimes it's not. And then you have to actually think about fluency and stimulus control, which we should have been thinking about already. Hello. I was right. Why didn't you listen to me? Um, no, that's not actually how I say that, but, uh, but yeah. Yeah.

So do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, when we've kind of got it down, when we've got the behaviors happening correctly in the correct sequence, what do we have to do to keep it that way? Yeah. So, uh, the good news is if I've built it really well, it's often self-maintaining. Um, and it shouldn't take, you know, if I'm having to do a hot, a lot of heavy lifting just to keep it going, that's a sign that probably it shouldn't have been going yet. Okay. Hello. I need to go back to my foundations. I say this a lot. Um, but if, uh, but if I've got a chain that's, that is put together well and is solid, uh, I just need to keep that reinforcement going. And, uh, I need to make sure that my cues stay both two things. One, my cues, uh, are still the cues that I think they are, uh, that I'm not unintentionally replacing some cues or bringing other cues in. And then I need to make sure that my cues are still reinforcing. We are still moving towards some primary reinforcement that each cue is serving as a conditioned reinforcer toward that primary reinforcer. And, uh, if I've got those two things, uh, we will, we'll be good. And I said that very glibly, like, oh, I just need to make sure my cues are clean and my conditioned reinforcers are, you know, like, like, yes, that is a very simple sentence to say, but, but as we already mentioned, sometimes we get distracted and we're not thinking about how the way we're using our cues and, uh, we can easily start turning something into something else. Um, you know, frequently, I think a verbal cue is what's prompting the behavior, but it's actually a contextual cue. So then, uh, when, when the context, you know, when the environmental cue is present, but I haven't said the verbal cue yet. Oh no, he's anticipating. Oh no, I don't have control of this behavior. And, uh, nope, nope. It's, I just didn't know that I didn't think my cue was what my, my cue is not what I thought it was. Yeah. Like as part of the maintaining process, do you need to continue to pull pieces apart and build fluency individually or once it's in a chain, can it stay in the chain? I'm going to weasel right out of that and say, it depends. So, um, um, there are, there are definitely cases where, I mean, it's never a bad idea. It's never a bad idea to pull out pieces and, you know, work with them, um, individually. Uh, you know, all that's going to do is help build your reinforcement history. Oh no, too much reinforcement is not something I say very often. Um, but some, some chains honestly can be pretty self-maintaining and those are usually simpler chains.

Those are usually ones where we're not likely to have a lot of competing or conflicting cues or something, but, you know, something as simple as, um, you know, uh, recall or go to your mat and lie down, which is actually, you know, it's a very small behavior chain. Um, go to your mat and lie down. I don't have to break apart, go to your mat and lie down terribly often to keep those fluent in a chain. Like those are going to, those are going to be there because it's short, it's easy. The, the cues are very, very clear. I probably don't have a cue for lie down. Probably arrival at the mat is the cue to down. So it's going to be really hard for me as a fallible human to botch the timing of that cue, uh, and, and start confusing my poor dog and that sort of thing. And as long as I'm reinforcing the end result of that chain, uh, the dog's going to maintain that chain pretty well. So, uh, so yeah, like I don't want, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Not every chain needs very, very careful maintenance. Uh, but I need to keep an eye on things. And if I see something starting to wobble, fixing it sooner rather than later, probably a good idea. So to go back to those unintentional or undesirable behavior chains for a minute, if you're looking at something like the examples you mentioned earlier, how do we begin to kind of break those down and rebuild them into more helpful behaviors now that we've, you know, dug a hole for ourselves, so to speak? Yeah. So I think one of the first things is just being aware that unintentional behavior chains happen so that we are looking for behavior chains as opposed to a single really simple unwanted behavior. That's completely detached from the rest of the world, uh, because that those don't typically happen. Uh, and then once we're looking for, okay, what is cueing this? What is reinforcing this? You know, being aware of what our cues are, uh, and then being aware of what the timing is that those cues are being given. Uh, so, you know, any cue that we have positively trained is a conditioned reinforcer. So whatever behavior is occurring when I give that cue is on some level being clicked. And I think sometimes that can be almost a, uh, a scary thing to say because then people are like, oh no, my dog is running across the field. But if I call him, then I am reinforcing running across the field. No, no. Call your dog. That's fine. Okay. That's just, that's completely legit. Uh, but if you're getting it, if you noticing a pattern that you're continuously giving this cue during a behavior that you don't want, you might be aware that you're clicking

this on the regular and that's going to start leading to unwanted behavior chains. So for the example of, you know, the jumping, if my dog keeps jumping on me so that I cue sit so that he can sit to greet someone, uh, you know, how many times does this have to happen? And then I can go, oh, wait, there's a reliable pattern here. I should look at that. And, um, and now I can see the dog is jumping. That's when I say sit. What happens if I, one, don't say sit while he's jumping on me. Okay. Um, and honestly, if in an established thing, the dog's going to continue to jump and harder, right? Because he's exaggerating the behavior and you're going to get a little bit of an extinction burst. You know, I am pounding my paws into your lungs. Please say sit. Okay. So a better option might be to say sit sooner. So we're going to bypass. I don't need to jump on you to get the cue sit. I can approach you to get the cue sit. Cool. I get to save energy and greet people sooner. Life is great. Um, so these are, you know, this is, this is the, the, the, I think system is too grandiose a word, but these are the things to look for at, you know, what are the cues and what's the timing of those cues being delivered that that will tell me what is being reinforced. And then I can look at, do I want to reinforce that or not? And if I don't, great, let's not give the cue. Then let's give the cue at a different time before or after. That makes sense. All right. So part of the reason we're chatting at all today, um, is because you're doing an awesome webinar for us on all this stuff on behavior chains on November 4th. So do you want to just talk a little bit about, uh, what else folks should know about the webinar just, um, to help them decide if they're interested in attending, maybe who should attend? Yeah. So if you are a nerd with insomnia and you want to talk about behavior chains, this is definitely the place for you. Um, and this is, I, I love behavior chains because like I said, it, they, they really are everywhere. You can't actually get away from them, you know, in, and, and it may start to interfere with your daily life. Like you're waiting at a stoplight for the light to turn green and you're starting to analyze like all the little behavior chains, you go into this chain of the street light, like, uh, the traffic light. Um, so not just, I'm speaking for a friend anyway. Um, but, but, but honestly, I, I just see knowing more about behavior chains and being aware of how they work and how, you know, pervasive they are in life. So that if understanding them better just means we're better at behavior in general, um, both

wanted behavior and unwanted, unwanted behavior. Um, and we can, you know, build really polished, you know, sport behavior chains. Like, you know, you mentioned most people, that's what, when we start talking about behavior chains, we start thinking about it for the first time in a sport context. And then you start realizing like, no, this could actually be everything in my life. You know, I walk into the kitchen, my dogs automatically go to their beds so that I'm not tripping on them in the kitchen. And then when I do this, they automatically move to this other space. And these are all behavior chains, you know, and, and, um, and it's great because it makes less effort for me and more reliable behavior and more reinforcement for them. So yay, everybody wins. Um, so I don't know, that's, I don't know, that's not necessarily a checklist of, of, of people who should come. Uh, but, uh, I, I guess I'm, I would just say if you are interested in having a metric to more easily identify, you know, what, what, what cues can I shift? What timing should I shift? What specifically am I looking for to make these behaviors more or less reliable, uh, depending on if they're wanted or unwanted behaviors, uh, then, then that's what we're going to talk about. Excellent. So to kind of round out our conversation today with one, you know, kind of final question, um, if we were to kind of drill all of this down into one key piece of information, you really want people listening to take away or to understand, um, what would that be? If you have fluency and if you have stimulus control, then you have a behavior chain. It really is that simple. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it really is that simple. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Laura. Hey, this was a blast. Thanks so much for asking me. Absolutely. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in. We'll be back next week with Kim Brophy to talk about the connection between ethology and behavior. If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast and iTunes, the podcast app of your choice, they have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzie Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzie for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by bensound.com. The track featured here is called Buddy. Audio editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in. Happy training. See you. Thank you.