14/07/2022
Awesome post🙌
* CAN YOU TRAIN WITHOUT REINFORCEMENT ? *
The simple answer is NO.
Learning Theory is becoming more popular across the horse world but it doesn't necessary mean that it is well understood. Now and then I see adds popping up promising people training approach that doesn't involve * any pressure or treats * or that is not based on operant conditioning. Those adds can be attractive but they're simply misleading.
Reinforcement is what drives the behaviour . Without reinforcement there is no behaviour (other than simple reflexes). Animals are wired to seek (positive) reinforcers and reducing the ability to obtain them can result in shut down, depression, frustration, aggression, frantic behaviours - this can be easily noticed in deprived environments or when reinforcement is provided in a very unpredictable and/or minimised way.
Horse world has become a very fantasy oriented place - people are seeking the special formula to communicate with horses and this attracts horse trainers to invent training approaches that will fit within those fantasis. In the process of doing so we often see the science being either bashed, cherry picked or twisted (pseudoscience) to match the personal/professional agenda and bias.
Positive Reinforcement is often the main focus of such bashing because there is some ( difficult for me to understand ) pride in not using food as reinforcement. Food is a primary positive reinforcer and if you opt out from using it in training then to teach behaviours you most likely need to go the Negative Reinforcement route.
Negative Reinforcement aka pressure - release can be harder to notice , especially if it is used well because it is labelled as natural way that horses communicate between each other.
This is partially true - Negative Reinforcement occurs naturally (all organisms work to avoid /escape aversives) but you need to teach the horse that particular behaviour response results in the removal of aversive stimuli , it is the removal of aversive that has reinforcing value. It doesn't make pressure- release more natural than positive reinforcement when it comes to horses.
Pressure -release (negative reinforcement) holds traditional bias , equestrians use it daily globaly because they belive that this is how horses communicate between each other. However any interaction between horses that results in avoidance /escape behaviours will always have agonistic (negative) value and won't support relationship building - right the opposite, it jeopardises the stability of the groups of horses that are naturally peaceful creatures.
If we want to interact with and /or train horses, Reinforcement will always be present despite of personal believes /biases . To understand how it occurs, to be able to observe the behaviour and work out what drives it and what emotional value is attatched to it is what will benefit our training, interactions and horses well-being.
