Influencing Motivation

               Motivation can be described as training skills and methods to get the animal to preform a desired task or behavior. It answers the question “why should my bird do this for me?” birds are not like dogs where dogs want to please you, it is in their biology, but parrots are opportunistic and always think what is in it for them. Most people think motivation is just within the reinforcer, and reinforcer type, but motivation can go beyond just the reinforcers we use to increase the rate of the behavior happening again.

               To keep it simple to start, the type of reinforcers can be the reason why your bird doesn’t seem engaged or interested in the training session. When using positive reinforcement training, we use a reinforcer, most use primary reinforcers like food but secondary reinforcers can be just as powerful when conditioned, we are using the food to increase the rate of the behavior happening again in the future. But if the reinforcer type is not strong enough for the bird, you lose the drive and motivation for the bird to continue the rate of the behavior. With the incorrect reinforcer, although you gave the bird a reinforcer, it is like you did not, since it did not effectively increase the rate of the behavior happening again.

               There are a lot of changes and reasons why your food reinforcers are not effective. First being you give training reinforcers within the bird’s daily diet already. Reinforcers can lose effectiveness if the bird gets them frequently, especially in their bowls. Save things like tree nuts and seeds for training and foraging so they become special and highly desired by your bird. If your bird is on an all-seed diet, or relies too heavily on them, you may need to change their daily diet before training can be effective. For diet conversion online consultations, learn more here. It may be that the reinforcers that you are using are not actually your bird’s favorite. To test what is, put one item of each reinforcer you have (one almond, one pine nut, one walnut, one sunflower seed, etc.) in a bowl with nothing else in it, and watch your bird. Make a note which one they pick out first, second, third. Do this everyday for about a week and compare notes of which ones were consistently the top three. That information will give you what is their most desired reinforcer to use when doing new or challenging tasks, what is their second favorite to use when reinforcing tasks that you are perfecting, and the third highest value for behaviors the bird has mastered already. All of this is what makes up motivating operations. This is called the differential outcome effect. Lastly, it may be the reinforcer delivery type. This could mean that maybe your parrot is fearful of hands, so delivering the food by your hand is punishing the value of the reinforcer, decreasing the reinforcers significance. I have found even our distance to your birds can affect reinforcer effectiveness. Other methods of reinforcement delivery include hands, by spoon, drop it in their bowl (even using small screw bowls placed around the cage and environment), and a drop-and-walk where you drop it in the bowl and walk away.

               The next factor to influence motivations is the environment not being set up for success creating behavioral momentum. Environmental manipulation can be a very useful tool when used correctly.  Setting the bird up for success can make it easier for them to learn, then take the small approximation to add challenges to the behavior once learned. Environmental manipulation can be anything like making sure obstacle are out of the bird’s way for easier movement, expanding doorways, keeping reinforcers out of plain site and in a treat pouch, removing the birds from loud environments to quiet, and training the bird away from other birds so they are not a distraction are just a few to be named. Still, it is important that your bird can work and complete these new behaviors hen learned in any environment. Once the bird knows the behavior, start to slowly increase the complexity of the environment, as well as work in a variety of environments, so the cue stays strong and your bird understands that the criteria in the starting environment stays consistent over to the chaotic.

               The last group of reasons is your ability and education of training. Training is a science, literally, and without the proper education and approach, it could severely limit your ability to train and train effectively. Watching people speak broadly about how to train online and even those extremely short “how to” videos showing a behavior in “4 easy steps” or a bird that is completing the behavior already trained can give you a false representation of training, as well as leaving out the small approximations and troubleshooting. Also, most information online, even on YouTube, is not from educated professionals in the field, just the average person that figured out how to teach their bird a behavior, likely through trial and error, and is now claiming they can train any bird a behavior, or creating marketing schemes for a business.

               There is a value with working with a professional trainer. Professional trainers will give you a detailed, written training plan that outlines step-by-step all the small approximations needed to complete the task. You do check-ins with the train to go over how things have been going to increase the success. The trainer teaches you the training fundamentals and techniques for you to be successful. They critique your timing and approach to perfect it, mentoring you for all your training in the future with them, or on your own. Trainers change your mindset on parrot care and training so you can be more successful and faster. If this sounds like exactly what you think you need, feel free to contact us.

               Without the mentorship of a professional trainer in the field, you take on the trial-and-error approach of training, which has a lower rate of reinforcement and undesirable consequences. It can set the bird up for failure, since you are not completely sure of the criteria set and exactly how to achieve that, which can increase frustration from trainer and bird, introducing possibly new undesirable behavior you then have to train through, slowly building up. Since there are more mistakes, set up by us because of our lack of education, the bird is punished more, like not getting reinforcement through enough successful repetitions, making the session undesirable and decreasing motivation. Because trial and error are accidental learning, meaning there is a chance that success happens, it makes it a slower process for your bird to learn, making success seem like it takes a long time.

               Another concern without the correct education in behavioral modification could be poorly understanding behavior. Parrot behavior is complex, and we are always learning more and more about it. This means you need to know the body language and behaviors being shown in front of you and knowing how to properly and promptly react. A lot of parrot caretakers will accidently, or on purpose, ignore subtle body language, resulting in your bird to have to your severe body language for us to respect their feelings. Since we want to use force-free, progressive methods of training involving science, we want to make sure the bird is comfortable and willing to complete what we are asking. This means subtle body language is our first sign that our bird is comfortable with something, which needs to be respected. When you hear “getting bit is apart of the process” or think that, that means you are ignoring a lot of subtle body language and only are reacting to very severe. In human terms, its like ignoring someone pleading for you to stop doing something and only listening when they punch you in the face.

               Another concern is anthropomorphizing. This is giving something that is not human like emotions. We project our feelings and mindset onto our animals without there being any evidence that the animal is feeling that way. Yes, parrots do have desires, fears, anxieties, etc. that are like humans and will be shown appropriately. Anthropomorphism would be like saying “my bird looks sad in their cage” when the bird is showing content body language because you have feelings about animals in cages and are projecting that onto the bird that is not showing the same feelings. Birds can be stressed or withdrawn in a poorly designed cage space, but if their body language is not showing that truly, then it is anthropomorphizing. This is also an example of not completely understanding how to interpret your parrots body language. Using any amount of anthropomorphizing in a training plan is deviating from the science-based training approach, which means the behaviors and tactics used are not able to be measurable and replicated. To reiterate, this does not mean reacting appropriately to your bird’s body language cues to understand their feelings and desires, it is simply us speaking for our bird and putting those feelings and desires on them without them actually showing us they feel the same way.  

               Without proper education and mentorship, you may have created a poorly designed training and shaping plan, or even leaving a behavioral management plan that is used outside of training sessions. These plans need to be detailed, working in small approximations for continuous success and confidence building. Without the correct shaping plan, there won’t be clear, concise communication between you and your bird. Management plans are in effect for outside of training. These include environmental changes and factors, new approaches to handling your parrot, etc. These plans need to be appropriately made to include all of these details and the correct steps in the right order so that the trainer can be successful for the bird to be successful as well.

               Our timing can also be a factor. A lot of trainers lacking proper education, using trail and error approach, can lack contiguity. Using a bridge can help with timing, allowing for the trainer to easily mark with an audial or visual cue the exact behavior they are desiring, allowing for a short burst of time after to be able to grab and deliver the reinforcer. Without proper timing and ineffectiveness of the bridge, we can create muddied communication on what exactly we are desiring from our animals. For example, we are teaching our bird to touch their beak to a target. You present the target, the bird touches it beak to it (the goal behavior) and then they walk away while we are busy trying to grab from the treat pouch the small reinforcer and then reinforce them as quick as we could, but now they are preening or onto another task. We didn’t reinforce the target, re reinforced the other behavior. In return when we present the target again, the bird will be less likely to come over and touch it again because it was not communicated that it is the behavior we are looking for. Instead, if we use an auditory bridge (like a clicker or verbal cause like “good” “okay” “yes”) that mark the target behavior so then it gives us time to grab the reinforcer so the animal understands that they are getting this reinforcer for touching the target.

               Training is a science. It is complicated, especially with parrots, so having success when self-taught can be extremely difficult or take a lot longer than needed. Behavior and behavioral management techniques, concepts, terminology is something that is complex and deep rooted. Understanding shortcomings and deciding to work with a professional is not giving up, it is simply wanting to do more for your bird and provide the best. Motivation is an incredibly complicated concept with a lot of varying factors to influence it. Diet, environment, trainer’s education and abilities, and approach are just the few factors that can influence motivation. Every bird and training situation is different. There is no overall reason or concept I can appropriately recommend changing to see immediate success except for encouraging you to work with a professional when you are using trail and error training methods, or finding little to no motivation within your parrot. Let the professionals take the guess work out of the equation so you can focus your time and attention making progress with your bird instead of the both of you being frustrated with the process or giving up. Fluff and feathers offer in-person and online behavior consultations and training for clients worldwide.