In my experience, operant conditioning can be effectively established in a fairly limited run of trials that include a clear association between the cat being placed in front of the cat flap and a my foot firmly inducing it to exit
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@twitemp1 will know more too, if she hasn't replied already!1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
I would use a technique called differential reinforcement of successive approximations to the target behaviour. Now, to train rats in the old Skinner boxes to eat from the food trays, which had flaps that frightened them, I used to keep them open and filled with food.
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As for day/night conditions, you could use different visual signals for open/close (discriminative stimuli)
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Invite Esther round to train your cats up.
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To be serious: training will work. And I am sure Esther would be the best in it! However, it doesn't change the fact that the door is badly designed. The cats would learned a behavior that still induces some 'friction', even if small, each time it is executed. 1/2
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Whereas when the cats were first time outside, they started climbing the fence in no time. Totally different situation. So my question would be instead: how can we design the door such that it naturally affords going through, just as the fence naturally afforded climbing to them?
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Star Trek style automatic doors, complete with sound effect *PTSSHHHHHHHH*pic.twitter.com/yY4v73LD6x
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Actually, bad design was the reason we had to do these little tricks with the rats. The flap-frame gap was just the “right” size to catch their little fingers
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Yes exactly! That happened with the male cat as well (the one on the photo) on day 1. A very traumatic experience - which probably doesn't help the learning process ....
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A cat flap company where the stuff is feline ergonomic called flaptastic or catonomics or meowgnificent or...
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