Extinction

Goal: The goal of these two days was to decrease Despereaux's behavior of pressing the bar until it was eventually extinguished. We wanted to get Des back to her behaviors from the first time she was placed in the box. 

Procedure: We used the "extinction" program that did not reward her for any number of bar presses. Despereaux was placed in the box for 30 minutes without any form of reward or reinforcement. 

Observations and Discussion:

     These were the days I looked forward to the least. I already knew how upset Despereaux would become when she was no longer rewarded for the behavior we worked so hard to get her to perform. Like any other day she immediately went to the bar and began pressing. She would press several times and then check the magazine for her reward and then return to the bar to keep pressing. It was honestly really hard to watch her do this because I felt terrible that she was not receiving any kind of reward and it was difficult to see her frustration. In the first 5 minutes she pressed the bar 76 times. In the next 5 minutes she decreased to 68 presses and continued to decrease to 29 and then 18 presses over 5 minute intervals. For the time period of 20-25 minutes she had 69 presses and 44 in the last 5 minutes of training. There were signs of an extinction burst because she was very spastic and would press the bar 10+ times in a row as if angry. 

Monday (10/7)

     We continued extinction on Tuesday because she was not successful on Monday, but had similar results. She showed an immediate extinction burst in the first 5 minutes with 55 presses. In the 5-10 minute interval she had 0 presses, so we thought she was catching on, but she ended up having a total of 88 presses by the end of the 30 minute session. In between bar presses she would bathe more frequently and sniffed in the left corner a lot. Her presses were also more deliberate and she really emphasized them by pressing very hard.
     I think another day or two of extinction would have completely gotten rid of her bar pressing behavior, but she definitely made improvements from Day 1 to Day 2. 

Tuesday (10/8)

The dark line is Day1 (Monday) and the light line is Day 2 (Tuesday).