Interesting read re learned helplessness

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Nikiwink
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Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Nikiwink » Tue Nov 13, 2018 1:57 am


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StraightForward
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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby StraightForward » Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:28 am

Great article thanks for sharing!
Keep calm and canter on.

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Chisamba
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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Chisamba » Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:24 am

I think it's a terrible article based on huge extrapolation and supposition with no credible reference and all her examples are chosen to support her pre conceived suppositions.

Now that said, I do agree with some of her observations. I am not saying it is without some merit.

I doubt that learned helplessness would disguise unsoundness, far more likely the horse was injected sound for sale purposes and the medication wore off.

But I really agree that to train you need to give the horse a choice, and a reason to choose the option you prefer. For example flooding a horse when it cannot escape, versus flooding when it can leave but learns to stay

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby kande50 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:32 am

Learned helplessness is the end result of excessive punishment, and few subjects actually get to that. What we see long before learned helplessness is suppressed behavior, in which the subject becomes "depressed" and sluggish.

It's IMO, the most serious problem associated with using negative reinforcement (pressure and release). Not that pressure and release is necessarily a big problem, but that less-than-skilled efforts to train using pressure and release often results in punishment--to the point that the subjects' behavior becomes suppressed--and then trainers up the pressure and that causes even more punishment, suppression, etc. etc. etc...

Understanding how -R and +P work, and what the fallout is, was a turning point for me because it motivated me to learn how to use positive reinforcement. And then training with positive R allowed me to avoid more of the inadvertent punishment, which avoided more of the suppression, which made it possible to create the kind of horses I've always wanted.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Chisamba » Tue Nov 13, 2018 1:47 pm

Kande you really need to learn the defintion of negative reinforcement. Negative enforcement does not include pressure, negative reinforcement is when something is taken away.

Positive reinforcement is when something (*good or bad) is added.

Negative = minus = removal

Positive = plus = added

I have to read and know behavior plans as part of my real job.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby kande50 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:29 pm

Chisamba wrote:Kande you really need to learn the defintion of negative reinforcement. Negative enforcement does not include pressure, negative reinforcement is when something is taken away.


Yes, the reinforcement is supplied by taking something away. Trouble is, what we take away is the aversive, which with horses is most often pressure, because if we want to take the aversive away to reward them we first have to have it. And because we don't very often ride around and wait for the aversive to happen so we can take it away, we apply it.

And that's where the positive punishment comes in, when trainers apply the aversive.

There's also negative punishment, but instead of applying an aversive so that we can take it away, we instead take away something the horse wants. For clicker trainers that's usually the treats. Although as with +P and -R, there's less P if one gets good at R.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Chisamba » Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:17 pm

Negative reinforcement, in my business, is not the removal of an aversive. It is the removal of a naturally occurring phenomenon. Removal of attention, removal of food, removal of entertainment, desirable items etc.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby kande50 » Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:31 pm

Chisamba wrote:Negative reinforcement, in my business, is not the removal of an aversive. It is the removal of a naturally occurring phenomenon. Removal of attention, removal of food, removal of entertainment, desirable items etc.


That would be negative punishment (-P), the removal of something the subject values for the purpose of decreasing the frequency of a behavior.

Punishment decreases behavior, reinforcement builds it.

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Chisamba
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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Chisamba » Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:19 pm

Nope because the goal is to build behavior that improves social interaction, all behavior is a form of communication, so none is punished

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Gestalt » Thu Nov 15, 2018 11:55 pm

I agree with a lot of what she says, but I'm a layman, not a professional in stats or science. I've seen a lot of "8 day stare" horses in the western pleasure world and I believe a horse can be lame and not show it until weeks or months go by. For a horse to be drugged at a sale, you'd think those drugs would be out or at least diminished enough for the horse to present lame within days. But again, I'm not a professional or expert. I've heard that some show Saddlebreds are beaten until they stop reacting to pain. That is so the trainers can sore them and it won't be detected at shows.

I've moved away from the "join-up" or "round pen" idea. It worked fine for my past horses that had a stronger sense of self and learned while stressed. But my current horse, a Saddlebred, will check out when he is anxious, so putting more pressure on him was becoming hurtful to our relationship and his training. He is so much better with rewards. Treats, rub on the forehead or under the neck, these are what gets him engaged with me and thinking.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby kande50 » Fri Nov 16, 2018 8:39 am

I just read the article and could hardly believe that the author was questioning whether it might be better to maintain a state of learned helplessness in a horse because that might make him more useful? I'm guessing that she doesn't really get that learned helplessness is maintained through punishment--and not just any old punishment but intense, unrelenting punishment. IOW, it's maintained by torturing the horse.

I find it unbelievable that anyone who understands how a horse gets to a state of learned helplessness would suggest that it's in any way acceptable.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Ryeissa » Fri Nov 16, 2018 3:51 pm

I sort of agree and sort of disagree with these ideas- there is a paragraph here that gives me pause-

We routinely put the horses in a position where there was nothing they could do to get relief from some sort of pressure. In order to maintain a state of LH, it seems like the helplessness must be reinforced regularly for the state to be maintained. Tying a horse’s head into a fixed position for long periods of time seems to be a common technique that can create and maintain LH. And the horses who object to being put in a state of LH? We called them “rogues.”

Side reins are teaching contact, there is a certain kind if submission we *do* need in dressage, however, the horse should feel that it is being allowed an opinion and option. (now I don't like side reins as there is no give and it's not like the rider's dynamic contact) but to lump all things together as negative is not a good practice. I like to call it "shaping and molding" and not making the horse helpless.....

Otherwise no one I know trains like that is mentioned in the article, so I think this is speaking about a (hopefully) small % of the horse world.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby kande50 » Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:30 pm

Ryeissa wrote:
Side reins are teaching contact, there is a certain kind if submission we *do* need in dressage, however, the horse should feel that it is being allowed an opinion and option. (now I don't like side reins as there is no give and it's not like the rider's dynamic contact) but to lump all things together as negative is not a good practice. I like to call it "shaping and molding" and not making the horse helpless.....

Otherwise no one I know trains like that is mentioned in the article, so I think this is speaking about a (hopefully) small % of the horse world.


I don't think she was talking about side reins, but about the practice of tying horses heads up to the rafters, or around to their sides, to make their necks so sore that they won't lift them no matter how much their mouths are yanked.

The horse world is full of abusive training practices, both major and minor, and everyone has their own concept of what is too minor to be considered abuse, and too major to not be considered abuse.

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Re: Interesting read re learned helplessness

Postby Ryeissa » Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:33 pm

point taken, she was talking about side reins in the stall and draw reins. I guess I was confused expanding this to dressage use of side reins. Good. That makes me feel better, it's very clear now that she didn't mean what I was discussing.

I have come to believe that once a horse is in a state of learned helplessness, that state must be maintained. Using my own experience as an example, in the hunter-jumper business we did this by putting horses in bitting rigs (side reins) in their stalls and then riding them in draw reins.


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