clipped from www.boston.com

The debate over the Dog Whisperer

His TV show is a hit and celebrities swear by him. But his tough-love training has detractors barking that positive reinforcement is less cruel and fetches better results.

clipped from www.boston.com

Now widely used around the world by animal trainers in zoos, performing-animal handlers, and domestic pet trainers, the clicker method and other positive, noncoercive forms of training have scientific evidence backing up their effectiveness, according to Dr. Nicholas Dodman, director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at Tufts University.

Now pediatricians and schools and parents have swung to a reinforcement-based model. In the dog world, I think that operant techniques are gradually sweeping the system.

clipped from news.medill.northwestern.edu

Maybe the Three Blind Mice didn’t really need their vision

Hartmann said one of the biggest surprises in her research was finding out how much independent control a rat has over its whiskers. Hartmann’s team found that whiskers do not bend and move the way people typically think– in sync and in a fluid brushing motion. A rat can shut down one side of its whiskers, while the other side goes to work.

Hartmann explained why it is important for scientists to study such seeminglyunusual systems as rat whiskers.
“By studying rat whiskers, what we’re really studying is the neural basis for the sense of touch and motor control. In the long run, understanding the rat’s neural circuits will greatly help us in understanding circuits of the human brain, and helping people with motor and sensing disabilities or injuries.”