![]() ![]() Skinner subsequently met the reporter in one of his student’s apartments. Skinner later demonstrated the use of a clicker-type device in 1952 when a journalist for LOOK magazine challenged Skinner to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method with a pet dog. This is often referred to by animal trainers as “charging the clicker” (see Alexander, 2003). Additionally, Skinner suggested that training begin by presenting the auditory stimulus followed immediately by food, which would likely cause the sound to become a conditioned reinforcer through Pavlovian processes ( Skinner, 1951). He proposed a sound should also be emitted by the trainer, as opposed to other types of stimuli (e.g., visual), because sound can be experienced from a variety of locations and distances. Skinner argued that using unconditioned reinforcers (e.g., food, water) may not allow for immediate delivery of reinforcement which could impact training success. The first publication for the lay audience advocating the use of a clicker was featured in Scientific American ( Skinner, 1951). If a specific research study used a stimulus other than a clicker this will be made clear. ![]() In the current paper, the terms click and clicker will be used generically to refer to a stimulus occurring after a target behavior and before an already-established reinforcer-even though the stimulus may take many forms (e.g., whistle, buzz). A click is typically presented immediately after a target behavior and before an already-established reinforcer is delivered. The clicker produces a short, sharp two-toned clicking sound when the small metal piece is depressed. One of these methods is called clicker training because it typically uses a small plastic device called a clicker. Currently animal training is conducted by humans with a variety of species (e.g., aplysia– Vorster & Born, 2018 zebras– Deane, 2017), in a variety of environments (e.g., the home– Ziv, 2017 zoos– Colahan & Breder, 2003), and uses a variety of methods (e.g., Ziv, 2017 Deldalle & Gaunet, 2013). Advancements in clicker training methods will benefit animal trainers who have been using clicker training for decades as well as applied practitioners who have extended clicker training to humans in educational and clinical settings.Īnimal training has been around for thousands of years. These differences highlight many opportunities to answer basic and applied research questions relative to clicker training methods. This paper reviews the few studies that have compared clicker training to a control group and then discusses how trainers and basic researchers use the same terminology in functionally different ways-suggesting the empirical support for mechanisms underlying clicker training is less robust than previously assumed. However, this will require that terminological differences between animal trainers and basic researchers are reconciled. A systematic approach to researching the function of the clicker in clicker training would benefit from collaboration between applied and basic researchers. This may be because research on clicker training has studied only one of several potential functions of the clicker stimulus that have been discussed by animal trainers. But, the few studies that have compared clicker training to a control have not provided evidence that adding a clicker is beneficial to training. Animal trainers often assume clicker training is a “science-based” way to train animals. In clicker training, animal trainers pair a small device (a “clicker”) with a reward when teaching or maintaining responding.
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