Clicker Training Advantages
A challenge in training an animal is communicating exactly when the animal
has done the behavior that the trainer is attempting to reinforce.
Consider an example of teaching a dog to back up. At the instant that the dog
moves backwards, the trainer must let the dog know that it has done the correct
thing. However, the traditional "good dog!" takes so long to say that the dog
might already have moved on to some other behavior. By the time the dog realizes
it is being praised, it might be moving forward again, or even sitting and
scratching.
Besides the imprecision in timing, using the trainer's voice for information
means that the actual signal will vary. The trainer's voice, pronunciation,
tone, loudness, and emphasis can change even during the same training session,
and training is slowed when the animal has to realize that some variations
(loudness or enthusiasm) aren't important while others ("good dog" vs. "bad
dog") are.
A conditioned reinforcement solves these problems. The conditioned reinforcement
can be any signal that the animal can perceive, so long as the signal is brief
(to prevent the problem of imprecise timing) and consistent (to prevent the
problem of variations that may confuse the animal). Dogs and horses are often
trained with a clicker or cricket, a small metal tab that makes a "click" sound
when pressed and released. For dolphins, the conditioned reinforcement is
usually a whistle. However, not all conditioned reinforcements are sounds.
Goldfish can be trained using a quick flash of a flashlight as their "clicker",
and deaf dogs can be trained with a vibrating collar.
