A conditioned reinforcer did not help to maintain an operant conditioning in the absence of a primary reinforcer in horses.

This research investigates whether a conditioned reinforcer (an auditory signal previously associated with a food reward) could substitute the primary reinforcer in a horse’s operant conditioning procedure. The results indicated that the replacement was ineffective.

Research Objectives

• The primary objective of this research was to ascertain if using an auditory signal, associated with a food reward, could act as a conditioned reinforcer and hence replace the primary reinforcer involved in the operant conditioning of horses.

Study Design

• Fourteen horses were involved in the study and divided into two groups with seven horses each. The two groups were the No Reinforcement (NR) group and the Conditioned Reinforcement (CR) group.
• All fourteen horses underwent nine sessions of Pavlovian conditioning where the word “good” was consistently paired with a food reward, with each session containing 32 such pairings.
• Post the Pavlovian conditioning, the horses underwent five sessions of operant conditioning, where they had to touch a signaled cone to receive a food reward. Each operant conditioning session had 30 trials.

Test Procedure

• On the final test day, a single session was conducted with no food rewards being given.
• For the CR group, the word “good” was said every time a horse touched the cone. There was no such substitution in the NR group.

Results & Conclusions

• The results of the test showed that the CR group did not perform better than the NR group, despite the conditioned reinforcement.
• The results of this study show that conditioned reinforcement in the form of an auditory signal was ineffective in maintaining the conditioning when it replaced the primary reinforcement.