Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

fi xed-interval schedule
A schedule 
that provides reinforcement for a 
response only if a fi xed time period 
has elapsed, making overall rates of 
response relatively low.
variable-interval schedule
A schedule 
by which the time between reinforce-
ments varies around some average 
rather than being fi xed.
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192 Chapter 
6 
Learning
PsychWork
SEEING EYE GUIDE DOG TRAINER
Name: 
Lea Johnson
Position: 
Seeing Eye Guide Dog Trainer
Education: 
BS, Geography, Dartmouth College, 
Hanover, NH
 SHAPING: REINFORCING WHAT DOESN’T COME NATURALLY 
Consider the diffi culty of using operant conditioning to teach people to repair an 
automobile transmission. If you had to wait until they chanced to fi x a transmission 
perfectly before you provided them with reinforcement, the Model T Ford might be 
back in style long before they mastered the repair process. 
There are many complex behaviors, ranging from auto repair to zoo manage-
ment, that we would not expect to occur naturally as part of anyone’s spontaneous 
behavior. For such behaviors, for which there might otherwise be no opportunity to 
provide reinforcement (because the behavior would never occur in the fi rst place), a 
procedure known as shaping is used.  Shaping  is the process of teaching a complex 
behavior by rewarding closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. In 
shaping, you start by reinforcing any behavior that is at all similar to the behavior 
you want the person to learn. Later, you reinforce only responses that are closer to 
the behavior you ultimately want to teach. Finally, you reinforce only the desired 
response. Each step in shaping, then, moves only slightly beyond the previously 
learned behavior, permitting the person to link the new step to the behavior learned 
earlier (Krueger & Dayan, 2009). 
Shaping allows even lower animals to learn complex responses that would never 
occur naturally, ranging from lions jumping through hoops, dolphins rescuing divers 
lost at sea, or rodents fi nding hidden land mines. Shaping also underlies the learning 
of many complex human skills. For instance, the organization of most textbooks is 
based on the principles of shaping. Typically, information is presented so that new 
material builds on previously learned concepts or skills. Thus, the concept of shaping 
could not be presented until we had discussed the more basic principles of operant 
learning (Meyer & Ladewig, 2008). (Also see PsychWork .)
For decades, guide dogs have provided a set of eyes to the 
visually impaired, expanding the opportunities open to them 
and increasing their independence. But it takes a great deal of 
training to make a dog an effective seeing eye guide dog, 
according to Lea Johnson, who works with The Seeing Eye 
agency in Morristown, New Jersey. Johnson teaches apprentice 
instructors to carry out the demanding, but rewarding, process 
of training dogs. 
“We hire college graduates, and while we don’t require a 
specifi c major, a background in psychology or animal science allows employees to 
more easily connect with different aspects of the job,” she said. 
An apprentice instructor needs to have self-motivation in order to complete all 
aspects of the dog’s training. In addition, they need to be able to work in a team 
setting, according to Johnson. But that’s only part of it. 
“The process of training the dogs is complex,” says Johnson. “For example, the 
dog must be obedient and respond to their visually-impaired owner. But they also 
get praised for sometimes refusing their owner’s commands, if it would put their 
owner in danger.” 
Once a dog learns the skills it needs, the trainer must then teach a visually-
impaired person how to work with the dog. 
“After training dogs for four months, the trainers must be able to teach blind 
people the skills to care for and travel with their Seeing Eye dog safely,” Johnson 
said. Not only must trainers relate well to dogs, but they also must interact well with 
blind people. She adds, “The training of people is intense and emotionally challeng-
ing in a very different way from the dog training portion. Without a good heart to 
start with, trainers would never be successful.”