"The animals are conditioned that they will be fed each time they come to the food bowl. Even after the bowl is empty they keep coming back to be fed even though the bowl is not being filled any more."
It's even worse than that, behaviorally. If you give a bird the pellet it wants every time it taps the the lever, then stop giving it, the bird will continue to tap for a while, then give up. If, however, you give it the pellet a few times, then don't, then start again, and so on, a few on, a few off, a lot on, one off, etc., unpredictably (known in the trade as an "unpredictable schedule of reinforcement"), and then stop permanently, the poor hopeful hopeless bird will tap until it breaks its beak off. |
