Date of Award
Summer 7-9-2018
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Diana Reiss
Second Advisor
Martin Chodorow
Academic Program Adviser
Diana Reiss
Abstract
The National Aquarium in Baltimore, Maryland conducted a training program in 2014 to develop a gestural command for their dolphins called “innovate”. This training paradigm was developed to resemble the seminal research by Pryor, Haag and O’Reilly (1969), as well as more recent efforts of Braslau-Schneck (1993) and Kuczaj and Eskelinen (2014) of training dolphins to offer “creative” behaviors not developed through conventional methods of behavioral modification, such as shaping. The goal of the present study was to observe records taken during the National Aquarium’s training procedure as well as data collected ~3 years after said training in order to analyze and observe training practices and resulting learning of the task among the trainers and dolphins. All subjects developed an understanding of the task “do something different” and exhibited patterns in the learning process similar to those reported by Pryor, Haag and O’Reilly (1969), as well as strategies used to complete this task similar to those reported by Kuczaj and Eskelinen (2014).
Recommended Citation
Van Steyn, Raymond John, "An Analysis of Innovate Training with Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)" (2018). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/360