Horses—Back-up from Behind

“Horses—Back-up from Behind” shows you the importance of clear and uniform signals and reinforcers and the use of auxiliary signals. The trainer, Tilde Detz-Jensen, a tutor at the institute, does not make one unnecessary sound or hand movement. The auxiliary signal, one we remove as soon as possible, is the Back-up signal consisting in pulling the rope ever so slightly. Technically, that is a positive inhibitor that, when removed, becomes a negative reinforcer. With repetitions, it becomes a signal (SD) for the horse, not an aversive any longer. We associate it with the signal Back-up employing sound and arm movements and remove it when it is no longer needed. Voilà, as simple as that!

The odd-looking annotations you see running in the subtitles is SMAF, a language to describe learning. You can learn more about that in our course Applied Animal Learning.