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classic conditioning a corn snake using vibration?

cornbreadandmilk

cornbreadandmilk

Non-registered User
So I was thinking of an experiment. Snakes have no ears but can detect vibrations. Would it be possible to play music before you feed a snake and have the snake key off of the vibrations? what if you changed songs would the snake be able to recognize a different vibration pattern? I would assume so.

I would think that a snake in the wild may be able to identify types of prey based on the vibrations

prey vs predator vibrations

.....of course if it's my snakes they will blindly bumble into their food.

thoughts?
 
oh snakes get classical conditioned easily, cage aggression is such.
The snakes that only gets fed in cage and not handled in between, soon enough when you open the will launch themselves. That is conditioning that is why so many people encourage to feed outside the cage.

My snakes def are getting conditioned, I feed them all in cage, and they all perk up. When I walk they often come and look too because they are hoping for food if it's a few days ago since they ate.

If you play the same song every time before feeding time I would not be surprised if they learn to come out when you play that song thinking food is on the way.
 
Most of my snakes come out when I am messing around near their vivs. One comes out and crawls straight up my shirt when I open her viv...Charisma. I have another that comes out and just sits and waits for me to get to him. Many of mine peek a boo out of the aspen. A few hide and I have to find them. They come out with tails rattling. My amber stripe is always out and always ready for a fight. He thinks he is a cobra. They all seem conditioned in their own way. I think your own snakes will condition to whatever your routine is. I would be interested to see your results.
 
Ravenessa said:
oh snakes get classical conditioned easily, cage aggression is such.
The snakes that only gets fed in cage and not handled in between, soon enough when you open the will launch themselves. That is conditioning that is why so many people encourage to feed outside the cage.
Click to expand...

I agree. I feed my snakes in their viv, but am sure to handle them before doing so. This way they don't associate my opening the viv to being fed, but more so to being handled since sometimes they are only handled and sometimes they're handled then fed.

And actually the above example is paired association, not Classical Conditioning. CC involves the use of pairing two stimuli to get the response.
 
Actually the pairing is the conditioning....
"Classical conditioning (also Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is a process of behavior modification in which an innate response to a potent biological stimulus becomes expressed in response to a previously neutral stimulus; this is achieved by repeated pairings of the neutral stimulus and the potent biological stimulus that elicits the desired response." Unless I have totally mixed up my english as that does happen (ESL).

But yes I suspect it is one and the same... you condition them trough pairing association.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning

Please correct me if I am wrong...

and I agree I fed in tub but I handle a little bit every day unless they just eaten.. HOWEVER, my BUTTER BOY has figured it out.. so if I clean and handle, and then open again a second time that day, he gets all excited, rattle his tail and stands up ready for the mouse. And people say snakes aren't smart. So I have started to switch it up on him and a lot less excitement rattle, funny is I thought they only used it when angry however he only does it if he smells food it is almost like a happy tail in his case. I love my butter he's awesome!
 
Right pairing the stimuli for the response. When Pavlov first did the experiment, he paired a bell (neutral stimulus) with the presence of food (biological stimulus) to elicit the salivation (response), then he took away the food and just used the bell to elicit the response. Paired association is pairing one stimuli to a response.

With using vibration (neutral stimuli) then presenting the food (bio stimulus) one gets some kind of feeding response. After numerous paired trials of the stimulus, you remove the food and just play the music to get the feeding response.

The difference in CC is pairing two stimuli instead of pairing one stimuli to the response with is known as paired association.

It's really cool when you see it, it was ground breaking psychology at the time when Pavlov first introduced it.


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Oh I have seen it... difference is in English I never thought of the translation. I work mainly with counter conditioning and classical conditioning, but I translate it as: I either counter condition the response to emotional stimuli. In my case I pair a food reward to whatever the dog is aggressive to, of course keeping stimuli on far enough distance to teach the replacement behavior i want the dog to do instead of attacking. Looking at me, sit, leave it or similar. Problem is English is my second language so when it comes down to the detail hair splitting I am still not a 100%. However I am very familiar with the work of it. (16 years of dog training specializing in anxiety and aggression). So I agree it is very cool, when I have parents who have a dog that can't be around people being able to walk into a pet store or accept strangers into the house, I can't say there is anything better.
 
Snakes can hear...but aside from that, I train all my hatchlings to come to the front of their bins to be taken out for feeding, by knocking lightly on the front. They learn fast!!
 
conditioning or not, after only one month of being fed in her plastic tub, yesterday Elsa snapped at my hand when I tried to take her out of the tub after the feeding. She surely thought that another mouse was coming her way. I had to hook her neck away using the thongs before reaching for her - she wanted to strike at everything. So she definitely associates being in the tub with feeding. She is a very calm snake otherwise so ... there must be something going on in her head ...
 
Is there anyway you can put her tub in her viv and let her crawl out on her own? Or tilt it somehow letting her go in by herself? If not maybe taking off the cover of the feeding tub while keeping a close eye then picking her up after she has her guard down?

My corn comes out of the viv (and feeding tub) on her own as soon she feels me take off the lid. If I reach in she does get agitated but doesn't necessarily strike.


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That's what I decided to do next time - I will let her climb out of the feeding tub and pick her up once she's out. The tub is pretty large - so I can't put it in the viv. Feeding is a family event (haha!) everyone sits completely still and watches Elsa gob down her fuzzy. The tub is on the floor, so we can safely let her come out of the tub.
I was prepared for her at some point in time to lunge at my hand, after reading about such behavior. It just surprised me a little, as she was always so tame. She's always been a very good feeder, so in a way this is not a surprise at all. She's a foodie, like me! :)
 
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