Bonus Episode 1: Negative Reinforcement

 In this quick bonus episode, we break down what Negative Reinforcement really is — and what it isn’t. We talk about the role of pressure and release in horse training, how timing shapes the horse’s experience, and how this form of learning can be used thoughtfully and ethically. Short, simple, and straight to the point. 

Voice note your questions on WhatsApp to +353 85 143 8688 to have your questions answered on the Podcast.

Meet Your Hosts

Barbara Hardman (Bright Horse Equiation)
www.brighthorse.ie

📧barbara.j.hardman@brighthorse.ie ☎️+353 85 143 8688

 Jen Nash (The Equine Method)
www.theequinemethod.co.uk

📧 Info@TheEquineMethod.co.uk ☎️+44 7902920923

Transcript

0:00

So, welcome guys. This is your very first bonus episode, which we're so excited to bring to you. Barbara, what's our topic today? We are going to be talking about reinforcement and what that actually means in relation to your behaviour, your training, and everything, horse. Fab, so I think of today are we going to focus on negative reinforcement and then next episode positive. Yeah, I think that's a really good way of doing it because we're all familiar with negative reinforcement, and I think it's something that is applied in every part of our day, both for ourselves, our dogs, our horses, and yeah. Partners. Partners. Shout out. Shout out. Shout out to all the long-suffering partners and friendships that we have. Anyone who is in a relationship or friendship with someone who studies behavior, whether that's animal or human, just know that you are being trained. It might not be successful training, but we will do our best to train you. And there are support groups available for those in those relationships. Um so it in a nutshell, reinforcement. I just want to talk about reinforcement before we talk about the negative bit, because we can off you know, because when we we talk about reinforcement, I think it's actually it can get lost in the negative and the positive, and that can kind of muddy the borders a little bit. But really, when we're talking about reinforcement, it's something that is strengthening, and and that's why it's easy to remember. If we reinforce a bridge or we're reinforcing a building, we're making it more likely to stay up. So we're we're holding it together. So that's an easy way of kind of remembering it. Reinforce, reinforcement, it is increasing the likelihood a behavior will be repeated. So even if we are applying negative or positive, whatever we're doing in our training, if it does not increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated, then it is not reinforcement. So that's really, really important. So whatever we do in our training, we're either trying to increase the likelihood of a behavior from happening, whether as we're training for a competition and we want our horses to be able to perform at a certain level, we want them to repeat that behaviour. Or if we're trying to do some behavioural modification, we might want to decrease the behaviour, and that's a separate talk, we'll talk about another day. So that's usually where we're coming about. So do you have anything else to add, Jen? Like when it comes to actually the reinforcement itself and what that means before we dive into the nitty-gritty of negative reinforcement. No, I think it's perfect. So the thing I love about learning theory is once you get it, it is simple. I think one of the problems is it's been described so many different ways with so many examples, and there's so much wrong information on social media and the internet that people do get confused. But I love your analogy, and you we spoke about it when we were weren't recording about reinforcing concrete bridges. I love that. Think about all those war films where they say, Call on the reinforcements. They're strengthening, you're you're making that winning. We'll try not to use winning when we're training our horses, but you think about in the movie context, they're getting through that moment with more strength. Reinforcement, strengthening up what you're doing, making it more likely. If we can just keep that in mind, then we're gonna get through this much clearer. So reinforcement, strength, whichever analogy you want, concrete, bridge, call it in right reinforcement of the troops. We're just making things more likely to happen. Yeah, and that that's it, and and that's it, and it's I think that's it. I'm gonna pause there for a second. I just want to check my notes for a second. Yeah, so as I I think it's just a great way of kind of framing that reinforcement in our minds, like because we have reinforced concrete, and that's how I kind of help it helps me remember. Um skip that was clap there. Sorry, that's how I can find it. Um what do we want to say? So if we take our first topic, which is today's short, negative reinforcement, let's now define the negative. Because on its own, the word we immediately think bad things. But this is the beauty of scientific language, is it's actually not very accessible and not very easy if you're not used to it because of those connotations. But when it was first defined, it was thought about in a very, very scientific mathematical context. So, Barbara, what what is negative? What what are we trying to achieve with that word? So everything in biology revolves around a feedback loop. Um, so I'm gonna break this down in a very physiological component. So the way biologists and scientists look at things is we calculate whether something is adding or removing a feedback loop. So the way I like to explain it to people is going to the bathroom. Okay, where's she going with this? I promise it will make sense because it's something we can all identify with. So when we need to go to the bathroom, our bladder fills and it applies pressure to the sides of our bladder and it connects then with our nerve endings and sends a signal to our brain that we need to go to the bathroom. This is technically an adversive pressure because it's not a very comfortable feeling to want to need to go to the bathroom and having a full bladder. But the reason that happens is it's part of the biological feedback loop. Your bladder fills, it puts pressure on the sides. That's an additive, so that's plus VE, that's the technical sciencey way of doing it. Applying that pressure hits those nerve endings, that then sends a feedback loop to your brain that says, Hey, I need to go to the bathroom. You then perform the behavior of going to the bathroom, you pee, and then the pressure is relieved, and you learn that going to the bathroom relieves that pressure, and the feedback is complete. So that's the system in which the physiological and biology works on a very basic level. Now, the reason I picked that example is because behavior is slightly different, behavior changes and adapts, and whereas we all go to the bathroom, it's usually all the same, and problems arise when that feedback mechanism doesn't work properly, and it's exactly how we teach our dogs to go to the bathroom, it's exactly how we teach our children as well, and that feedback mechanism works. What's important about that too, and which I don't think gets reported on enough, is within that cycle, when you do pee and the pressure is released, dopamine is released in the brain. Not as much as if something you know you were given a Mars bar, but it is still released because it's really important in learning that process. So when we talk about an adversive, that can sometimes be a motive because we go, Oh, I don't want anything adversive to happen. But from a physiological perspective, needing to go to the bathroom is an adversive feeling because it's applying pressure, because your body needs to tell you, I have to get rid of this waste product. Yeah, and I love this human example, and you just made me think of another one, and is when you talked about dopamine that oh, that's amazing. Do you know when you're on holiday and we go on holiday because we want to be on the beach, the sun, not all of us, but and you're baking in the sun and it gets too hot, and you've got options there, you you make a decision to either jump in the pool or get into the shade, and you get that oh so much better. Yes. So even though it's negative reinforcement because the sun was that adversive stimuli, and you're feeling that pressure on your body, the behavior is to move and go somewhere cooler, you're getting a nice feeling. You're like, oh, so much better. Yeah, and we sort of forget that that negative sorry, my stomach is doing weird things. Hold on a second. I don't know if you could hear that. I was like little grumbles. Yeah, so it applies negative reinforcement affects us all from a physiological perspective, and the reason I started there as an example is because it's part of our evolution and it's part of our learning because it protects us, and that helps us if we learn and the reason we learn to perform behaviors like getting out of the sun, because we'll dehydrate, we could, you know, damage our our skin, you know, there's other, you know, I say there's other dangers to our own physiology and survival, so it helps us learn to perform those behaviors to make sure that we can survive. So negative reinforcement gets a bad rep because of the negative part, but it's also a really important part of our survival and learning behaviors, and we can utilize it in lots of different ways when it comes to training. So we use it a lot in traditional training with horses, and everybody will be familiar with pressure release as it's referred to. And again, this is why we wanted to do these bonus episodes because a lot of different terminology is used for the same thing. We like using lots of different words. So pressure release, negative reinforcement, you know, traditional training methods, they are all referring to the same type of behavior patterns where we're applying pressure in the form of say our leg to ask our horse to move forward. We apply that pressure, our horse takes a step forward, and critically we release that pressure. Now, the release is really, really important. Again, think of moving out of the sun, getting away from that sun, and seeing if hand signals now. I was gonna sorry, sorry, I thought you were talking to yourself there. Yeah, I was just gonna go back and stick on the human examples a little bit longer. Yeah, we've talked that's perfect. We've talked about um that great dopamine feeling of oh thank god, but it's not always like that. And what I was gonna do, I was gonna say, Barbara, do you remember in a previous episode you talked about tapping me on the shoulder and made tap tap tap tap tap? Yes, perfect. Yes. I was gonna bring that in. Great, you crack on then with that. I'm just gonna go off you up. So, Barbara, I love the fact that we've started the conversation thinking about how the environment plays a role in negative reinforcement, and it's such a crucial thing for survival and comfort. And yeah, we can have dopamine and good feelings around negative reinforcement. But do you remember in a previous episode we were talking about being in a queue and you were tapping me on the shoulder? Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And once I turned around and looked at you, you released the pressure. So that's also negative reinforcement. It wouldn't have the same dopamine effect as oh thank god I got out of the sun. But there's still a release, and there's still a relief as well, because that tap-tap-tap on my shoulder is an adversus stimuli. And then Barbara was then training me that if I didn't turn around, she would keep tapping on my shoulder. Again, it's the we had a release, so I got relief from that adversus stimuli. So again, it's still negative reinforcement, it's in everyday life. Yeah, absolutely. And where that could get more frustrating for you is if you were in the middle of doing something. So, say, for example, you were in the middle of performing a different behavior that you were motivated to do. So you were filling the dishwasher and you were like, I need to get this done, and I come up and I start tapping you to be like, move out of the way, I want to, I want to get in there. You are performing a different behavior, and that's when that can get frustrating. So if you're in the middle of doing something else, and suddenly you are approached by negative reinforcement asking you to do something else, that can be frustrating. And again, we've all kind of felt that if we, you know, go to say an example of say the sun, again, if you're busy out in the garden and you need to get all this work done and you are performing that behaviour of doing the gardening, and you're like, Do you know it's getting really, really warm now? I need to move inside, but I need to get the rest of this done, and that can add frustration and stuff as well. So there is a certain amount of resilience as well that comes into certain types of behavioural training. So, for example, the very first time you go out into the garden and you start doing, you know, the garden, it's lovely sunny summer. At the moment, it is at the time of recording. Um, you know, you're going out and you're doing all that gardening work, you may not be able to perform that behavior with that negative reinforcement at the same time, they're competing. I've gone off the rails completely, I've gone into a different tangent. Yeah, never mind, scrap all that. Yeah, we are, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've covered some human examples which hopefully are going to help our listeners find the use of the words negative reinforcement a little bit more accessible. So let's put this into the horse context. So I think one of the simplest ways to talk about negative reinforcement with horses is when we put our leg on. That's your reverse of pressure, your reversa simuli. The horse feels on the sides of their legs as long as it's been trained and they somewhat understand. Actually, I'm gonna scrap that. Leaving gap because it would do head collar pressure instead. I feel like that's more understood. Yeah, it is. Um, I love that we've talked about some human examples here, and hopefully that will help our listeners find it a bit easier to understand what negative reinforcement is. But let's take this over to horse examples. So I want to start with a really simple one of head collar and lead rope pressure. So if we want to use negative reinforcement correctly for asking a horse to walk forwards, only using negative reinforcement with the head collar, we should apply the pressure, hold the pressure consistently, do not escalate, hold it consistently. The second the horse takes a step forwards, we release. But this can go so wrong sometimes, and this is where negative reinforcement can get confusing, convoluted, and get a bad reputation. So, Barbara, when you're out coaching clients, especially like first time, what are some of the typical things that we see where this goes wrong and how we can easily remedy it? So, what are you looking for as an answer? And then pressure when people pull, horse doesn't move, and then they drop the pressure. That one. Oh, yeah, okay. So, what can happen a lot of the time is that we are almost two steps ahead, so we can create a cue that says we're gonna step forward and the horse learns, but that's much further down the uh let me try that again. So, what can happen a lot of the time is we're standing beside our horse, we want to move forward, we apply pressure, the horse braces and doesn't move, and then we drop the pressure. What that can inadvertently do, like so think about that reinforcement removal of pressure, increasing the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. The horse accidentally learns, ah, okay, the human just wants me to stand still. So if you apply pressure to the knee rope and then the pressure drops because the horse doesn't move, the horse goes, Ah, in order for the pressure to go away, I just stand still. Cool, I have I understand that. And we go, no, no, no, no, no, that's the wrong thing. I want you to step forward and we don't understand then when I where our horse isn't responding. So it's about timing and releasing the pressure once the desired behavior has been performed, because that is going to increase the likelihood of that behavior being repeated. So if it's walk on for the lead rope rope, then we need to make sure that we're releasing the pressure once our horses take that step forward. Perfect. Got there in the answer. Another horsey example that I see a lot that I think people will very much um affiliate with is the horse who won't be caught. And you're you've even got a bucket of food and everything, and you're walking across the field and you know they're not gonna not gonna catch, and you're trying to creep up next to them, and you're getting closer and you're getting closer and you're getting closer, and you go, Yes, I'm getting closer. And one or two things might happen the horse might grab some food and run away, or you get so close the horse ducks its head, goes, uh-uh, no chance, and they're off across the field. Or you try the other technique of walking backwards towards your horse because that's less pressure, right? This happens, this this is a real thing. Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. I I I'm like, you're gonna fall, and that would be me falling on my face on the field if I tried that. I think. Yeah, and while in principle it's it's half, you've got a little bit, you know, you are trying to reduce the pressure, the your image. Another one that people do is they hide the head collar behind beside them, and that one always makes me giggle a little bit, so it's like, okay, so we want the horse to be caught, but we're gonna surprise attack them at the last minute. Yeah, maybe not. It's all tricky. It's all trickery, we're attempting. Yeah, it is all trickery. So if we break this down, what is actually happening for the horse? Think about your presence as the adversive stimuli. You are getting closer and closer, that distance is getting smaller. What's the behavior the horse performs? The horse moves away from you. What's the consequence for the horse? What's then he learned? Pressure was removed. Yeah. And this is why it gets worse and worse and worse, and the horse is like, Oh, all I have to do is move away from you, and I can get away from you. And two things will happen: it will start to happen from a bigger distance, or the horse will become very comfortable in this set pattern, and they'll let you get really close, and they'll go, Oh, yeah, my owner drops their shoulder, or they make this little shuffle, or they make this noise, that's just when they're about to grab me, and then they're off. Yeah. And every single time they do, it increases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated because it's removing the adversive. And we don't like to think of ourselves as like an adversive, but they're a prey animal, so it's not that they don't like you, they don't want to hang out with you. We've got to get away from those negative connotations with the word, it's purely from a mathematical perspective and that pressure, you know. So they are a prey animal, they see an approach, and they will do it amongst themselves as well. If something is too aversive, they will move away from it because that's their go-to, their go-to behavior. So, one of the ways that we can combat this, besides from hiring one of our lovely ladies here, um, to give you a hand, one of the things we can do is instead of our horses moving, if that's what they want, we can move away. So we can go stand still, don't move, now I'll walk away from you. And that also removes the pressure. And it teaches the horse, oh, if I stand still, the human leaves me alone. So it's exactly the same principle that can help us reduce those kind of issues. So we're taking that and we're actually using it to our advantage without having to resort to walking backwards and hiding head ropes and all sorts of trickery. So just to I was gonna recap it there because I think we're at 15-20 minutes, but do you want to keep going? I just wanted to add in the fact that we're not talking about join up. I wasn't gonna use the word join up. Oh. I was gonna talk about it. I just want to add in there that what we're talking about here is actually creating a distance, approaching the horse to the point which the horse does not feel the need to move. We are not talking about a certain method that requires the animal to run and run and then turn into us. What we're actually doing is trying to make sure that the horse never feels the need to begin flight, as a flight response is a stress response. So, just to make that super clear, we don't want the horse to move at all. And and what this actually is, is and this sort of tips into a different part of learning and training that we we will probably cover in another bonus episode, which is what we refer to as extinction. So that's actually elimination of a certain type of reinforcer and making sure that you're just not allowing certain behaviours to be performed and is referred to as extinction because it's part of behavioral modification shaping plans, and this is where the nuances and subtlety of behavioral modification and training come from, where we're we we move and we pivot into different types of terminology, but we'll cover that in another one because I think extinction work is totally overlooked. Um, so hopefully that will be coming in another bonus episode. Are you happy for me to recap? Yeah, I just want to do literally two minutes on um it's not just you know the importance of and we should caveat every single episode with we always need to understand. Understand the underlying. So although we're simplifying, just remember, guys, we're only talking about what negative reinforcement is in this concept. So I'll do a clap, but you know what I mean? We'll just do like a one-minute recap of just remember there's a big story, and then I'll let you then I'll hand over to you to recap. And we'll do, yeah, perfect. So hello! Oh, I'm being brought food. Where the fuck is my food? Where's my food? I can't hear you. Outrageous! What have you got? It's peanut butter on Apple. Um water. Are you making coffee? No. Okay. Madonna! Love you! Out Right. Um Is he very good? What did he do? What did he do? I mean wrong. What did he do wrong? What's he? He wants me to help him when a delivery van arrives. He wants me to jump off on the beers and help him break down to the house. I knew there was something! I knew there was something. That's why I keep looking out the window because I'm like, oh, is that it? Is that it? No, that's that's funny. Oh, that's so funny. Okay. Oh my earphones keep popping out. So guys, I hope this is helping us understand a little bit about what negative reinforcement is. But I just want to talk about that example there with the horse who won't catch. On the very basic level, um, environmental wait, what is it environmental reinforcement? No. No. I'll just say subtle negative reinforcement. I'll just say negative reinforcement of our bodies. Just say negative reinforcement, yeah. Give me another clap. So just to caveat that, guys, just so we're not losing the bigger picture, I just want to remind us that on the very basic level, it is a good use of negative reinforcement with that approach and retreat where we release the pressure by walking away from the horse for not moving. We always have to remember there is a bigger picture. Training on its own will not overcome other reasons which might be motivating and maintaining that behaviour. So, what I mean is there's a possibility that the horse is actually not wanting to be caught for a different reason. For example, there's a fear response to leaving the field, separation anxiety. It might not be about the actually being caught. Being caught might not be scary, it's actually something else. So, in all these episodes, just remember we're talking about the training and the learning and those techniques, but there's always a bigger picture, and that's why you employ the likes of myself or Barbara. It's our jobs to do that detective work for you. And just as like an example of that, because I think it's really, really important to just focus on, we talked at the very start about our human physiology and how negative reinforcement helps us go. I need to go to the bathroom. If somebody, for example, had um a bladder infection or a UTI or suffered from an incontinence or a medical issue, this is where we have to look at other factors that are say maintaining a behavior and why someone might be going to the bathroom. It may not be the reinforcer itself. So actually looking at other things that are made. I don't know if this is any good, Jeff. No, no, no, it's no, because I think it's really important to. I love what I wanted to achieve in these episodes is to keep going human, animal, human, animal. It's everywhere. Bring yeah, it's behavior, human behavioral science, and just behavioral science is a thing. Okay, give me a second and let me try and hold that up a little bit more. Um fan. There you go, there you go, there you go. It's a warm day, so it's giving beating through now. Yeah. It is warm. So just to like give an example from a medical perspective, so I work with a lot of clinical cases, and if we were to look at it from a human perspective and someone had an incontinence problem, then we would be looking at what is maintaining the behavior. So we were talking about that's a bit too, I would jumped in too far there. Yeah, just bring it back to so remember, guys, thinking about that you need bathroom example, that could be more complicated because and just look back to the start of the episode. Yeah, so just like we talked at the start of the episode from a human physiology perspective and needing to go to the bathroom, if we link it back to that bathroom example, while negative reinforcement is helping to teach the behavior of going to the bathroom when your bladder is full, if you had an underlying medical condition which impacted your bladder or your kidneys, you may not be able to go to the bathroom the same way. You may be in retention, you may be incontinent, you could have underlying medical issues that don't support that part of the learning. And we might ask ourselves a question if our dog is, for example, you know, dribbling urine in the house or not able to go to the bathroom like they did, it may not be a case of a learning aspect. There may be an underlying medical condition that's impacting that. So while we're talking about these while we're talking about these behaviors in these bonus episodes to help you educate you and understand what reinforcement is, it doesn't take away from the aspect of what is maintaining the behavior that we want to try and improve, and it's always important to look at it in a holistic perspective. Anything to add? Yeah. So, guys, with that, I hope we have covered what negative reinforcement is in the best example and the best description you've ever heard in your life. Can you hear the dogs? Doggies, I can I can hear them. You you do that, but you do it because they're gonna bark for a while. Yeah. So just to recap, guys, I hope you found this really informative. We're gonna keep doing these bonus episodes. So, just a really quick recap. Negative reinforcement involves removing an adverse stimulus to encourage the desired behavior. It's really important to get your timing right, and consistency are key. And obviously, understanding if there's anything else, maintaining the behavior if the reinforcement schedule isn't working with proper timing. Proper application of reinforcing can really help us have well-trained and safe horses. And if you have any questions or stories, please share them with us. Share this podcast with anyone that you think would find interest in. Please do share this podcast with anyone you think would find this interest in, and stay tuned for the next bonus episode, which we will be talking about the other side of reinforcement, which is positive reinforcement. Till next time, guys. We'll speak to you soon. Bye. Bye bye. Fabium. Perfect. So do you have a delivery or do you want to do positive reinforcement? Yeah. Yeah, so be twenty twenty-five. Yeah. Yeah, which is great. And I think as I say, we definitely we're definitely getting better at this as well. Just even the fact that we're able to interrupt each other, the little claps kind of help as well, because I can I can find those audios. I can see them in the sound waves, and then I can go, great, they were starting again, great, they were starting again. Um and keep us on on time. Um, perfect. I don't like peanut butter, I don't like peanut butter. Um poor man. Right, so we try it with positive Yeah, let's stop and save that.