Discuss How You Would Go About Shaping a Response That an Animal Does Not Ordinarily Make. Identify the Animal and the Behaviour Clearly and Explain How You Will Go About Eliciting the Desired Response from the Animal.

Learning Theory attempts to explain how an individual or organism learns. Learning can be achieved through observation, social facilitation, formal teaching, memory, mimicry, classical conditioning and/or operant conditioning. Among these different theories of learning, classical and operant conditioning gives the most interest to animal trainers http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/.

Ivan Pavlov was known for his experiments with dogs and his classical conditioning. Pavlov had this observation that when a hungry dog who sees a bowl of food salivates. This is a natural, uncontrolled, and unlearned relationship http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbb/comm221/chapters/pavlov.htm. Classical conditioning starts with relating two things (food and salivation), then trying to add a third thing, using a bell several times. In due course, the bell will be associated to the other two (food and salivation). From unconditioned stimulus and response, a conditioning stimulus is added to the existing relationship.

Classical Conditioning is evident to both human beings and animals. If you see cigarette commercials, cigarette commercials are transmitted with beautiful women wearing barely anything. The beautiful women will then be associated with smoking cigarettes.

For instance, if I had an Aquarium full of fish at my care, I would use classical conditioning in shaping a response. Naturally fish would come up to surface level every time food pellets are being tossed into the water. Feeding time, I would simply tap the aquarium many times calling the attention of my fish and associate my tapping with food pellets. I have a relative that does that, and every time he taps the aquarium, the fish rise to the upper part of the aquarium showing that they are waiting for the food pellets. This shows that the fish already recognizes the conditioned stimulus (tapping the aquarium). And to show that it is a special day for the fish, I could use my hand and make waves in the aquarium, associating my actions that I am about to give the fish a special treat, in such a manner that if I do it many times, I expect the fish to react to my disturbance in the aquarium.