Pseudonymous Ramblings by Psychobunny

Randomness, Behavior Analysis edition

Blackmail Material

Actual lecture content from Dr. Way-Too-Generous's class this morning during a rather abrupt segue from the role of deprivation in donkey shows (where women need money so badly they're willing to risk death by bestiality) to the role of deprivation in autism treatments (where you have to specifically set up the conditions that will make reinforcers most effective):

Dr. WTG: But what about severely autistic children, where the only reinforcers that will work are primary reinforcers like food? Can we just refuse to let them eat?

Me: [scoffs] Just wait until the next mealtime...

Dr. WTG: Yes! Do the session before breakfast! After all, who isn't horn--HUNGRY!--in the morning?

Rattie Adorableness

In the lab, we're finishing up a project from last year, so nineteen of the rats are done running and stay in their home cages, but the other five all still have to be put in the carrier cage to go to the chamber room. The carrier cage is about twice the size of their home cages, when there's five of them in it, it's kind of a tight fit. They try to escape by coordinating their movements to use their heads as a battering ram to pop the lid off the cage. It's really cute. They are so smart!

Usually, Dr. Candid Advice puts them in in the morning and I take them out after class, but today Dr. CA was already there when I arrived. The last thing she did before she left was to give the five rats a wet paper towel to play with. They promptly shredded it into their bedding, so when I took them back to the home cage room I needed to pick out the shreds.

I started taking the rats out of the carrier cage and putting them on the table next to the cage. I had no sooner pulled the last rat out and looked down to start picking the shreds out than two rats climbed back into the cage. I pulled them out and, lo and behold, another rat in the cage. This went on for a good three minutes, though I'm sure it would have been less time had I not been laughing so hysterically at their little game of Annoy the Human Beyond Exasperation. I swear they were smiling at me.

I finally got all the rats out of the cage, and, thinking ahead, picked up the cage off the table so I could pick out the shreds without a rodent surprise. I got the shreds out, put the carrier cage away, and started putting the rats back into their home cages, calling them by name to come to the side of the table. I got the first two rats in and turned back around to the table to call for the third. No sooner did I say "Come here, Mandy, let's go home to where the food is!" than she runs to the opposite end of the table and jumps off in a heroic bid for Rodent Freedom.

So now, I'm a rather large woman attempting to chase a rat in a room that's approximately 10'x10' before you get in a garbage can, a table, a small filing cabinet-like thing on wheels, and a cage rack that holds 36 cages. And that's not to mention that this particular rat (A) is very hungry, and (B) has a history of attempting to snack on my fingers, meaning I really don't want to be anywhere near her teeth. In other words, she clearly has the advantage. She ran under the table, I groped blindly under the table. She ran for the crack under the door, I lunged to catch her. She finally made the mistake of running towards me, and I caught her. She did this yesterday too, except yesterday the other rats pushed her off the table. Ah, the power of operant learning! I shudder to think what she's going to try to pull tomorrow.

posted by Psychobunny at 2:39 PM