Bridge and Training

A "bridge" in animal training is a stimulus that bridge a correct response to a reinforcement (usually a food reward) and is almost often a vocal communication such as the sound of a clicker or praises (Good boy!). A bridge is usually an anticipation of something positive going to happen and bridging tells an animal that they did the desired behavior and a reward is on its way.

Most of what I did today was bridging and positively reinforcing my lemurs to do the behavior I want them to do. The bridge, in this instance, is the sound of a moving conveyer belt that dispenses a treat. When the lemur hears the mechanical sound of the conveyer belt, it acts as a bridge to tell them they did the right behavior and a food reward is on its way. All the lemurs that I worked with today were very cooperative. They ran right up to the apparatus and did a lot of explorative behaviors but almost immediately knows that the chute in the apparatus drops food reward because they were sitting near the chute (this might be a biased observation on my end). Hopefully, in time, they will associate the sound of the conveyer belt as the bridge.

Aside from doing training today, the trainers and me found a few issues that I need to work on with my apparatus. One of the most important thing was glare. We tried to train the lemurs outdoors and the glare made it impossible to see the tablet screen. I will be training the lemurs indoors tomorrow so hopefully the screen should be brighter (in theory it will). Some design changes were made to the phone app interface, including having a number countdown on how many food rewards were dispensed for easy rewinding, as well as incorporating haptic feedback whenever I press a button so I don't have to look down at the phone while miraculously also keeping an eye on the lemur.

Have I mentioned how unbearable this North Carolina heat is?

Apparatus, Assemble!

This beautiful mural greets you as you enters the Duke Lemur Center. Tonga Soa!

Today was exciting because I get to put something in practice after fussing around with the concept, prototype, and then the product for almost a year. I am, of course, talking about my apparatus that I built. If you have been following my posts, you'll know what I am talking about.

NOTE: If you are interested in learning more about my apparatus, I will be presenting a poster about it at ASP 2015 in Bend, Oregon. I usually have the poster up the same day or a day after so if you can't make it to ASP, please keep an eye on it in this blog.

I brought all the pieces of my apparatus to the research center and assembled them there. Took me about 30 minutes and I'm getting much more proficient judging from all the times I've dismantled and assemble the apparatus back again. Everything is in place. Nothing is broken. Everything works as intended. There were some hiccups, but then again, as I said in my previous post, no matter how much you try to test a products you will always run into some hiccups when you finally use it as intended.

1. My USB wire doesn't seem to want to connect between an Android device to a Macbook. Still haven't figured out why this is happening but I figured out an alternative to route my data to where it needs to go.
2. Some of the location has no WiFi connection so my apparatus cannot communicate to Google spreadsheet. No matter. I figured out how to work around that as well.
3. My grapes are getting stuck on my conveyer belt cups. We ended up opting for craisins. It'll be smaller and the lemurs can eat it quick enough to focus and get back to the tests.

You know what? I'm too blessed to be stressed (that's actually what my mug says). As long as you are quick thinking, there is nothing you can't do.

My apparatus and me.

After assembling my apparatus, I did a walk through of all the enclosures where I will be doing my training and testing. Also got to meet most of my subjects (inside voice: squeeee! they are soooo cuuuuutteeee!!!) and figuring out what location is best to put my apparatus in.

Before I left, I signed a few waivers and one of them was about not posting any photos or videos before getting a release from the research center so, sorry y'all. No backstage photos. If I ever take any pictures and it is cleared by the research center then I will definitely post it here. If not, sorry. Rules are rules.

I return tomorrow to the research center to start my training. Stay tuned!

Journey to the South

Photo from DeviantArt

"Nothing in this world is difficult, but thinking makes it seem so. Where there is true will, there is always a way". - Cheng'en Wu, Journey to the West.

My arduous journey begins today as I head south to Durham, North Carolina to begin my research with the ruffed lemurs. Much like how the Monkey King had to abandon all of his monkey to learn more about the world,  I had to abandon my Monkey (and Serra, and Cloudy) to learn more about the ruffed lemurs. My parents and hubby sent me off at the airport. I was sad having to leave, but I'll be back in NYC in 2 weeks for the weekend so that softens the blow a little bit. I will miss my cats a lot in the mean time.

One of the most stressful thing for me (yet) was to pack my apparatus and hoping it will make it to Durham in one piece. I had to disassemble my apparatus and pack it in two parts: the shell and the mechanical parts inside. I packed my shell inside a large artist tote, wrapped with bubble wrap and hard cardboard. For the mechanical parts, I packed them inside a cardboard box and put it inside a luggage that's padded with clothes.

I'm happy to say that all my luggage made it to Durham, yes all 5 of them. I had checked 3 of my luggage and TIL that checked bag fee increases exponentially. I ended up paying $210 to check 3 of my bags. Oh well. Lesson learned.

I am most ecstatic when I got to my hotel room and opened up my luggage. Everything is in one piece! My acrylic pieces were not shattered! My mechanical parts are all intact! I did not lose anything. Woohoo!

Unboxing my acrylic pieces. Thank Darwin all the pieces are intact and not shattered.

I am settled comfortably in into my hotel room now. It's almost midnight [it already is after midnight]. The room is pretty comfortable but I hope I don't go stir crazy in here. Went to Walmart to get some groceries (grapes for the lemurs!) as well as some necessities.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Not sure what I am going to do. Probably take in what Durham has to offer. See you then!

Thanks for touching my big black box

Prototypes are meant to be rigorously tested but sometimes you won't catch any problems until you have finish building your product. That is why it is also important to test a product before putting it to use. I have been building and testing the prototype to my apparatus for a good 6 months now. I had recently put together the finished product (the first one shattered but let's not stress about that). Before I bring it down to the Duke Lemur Center to test it on the lemurs, I enlisted a few willing human subjects to come over my apartment to test the apparatus. All in all, it went well. Although it's much easier to tell a human to do something than a lemur. I anticipate training these lemurs for at least 2 weeks before they have any idea what I want them to do. Thanks to those that came over and touch my big black box!

'Coz Ru, it's made from black acrylic.

It helped a lot to see the apparatus in action. Sometimes if you test your own product, there are some inherent biases that influence the way you see and evaluate something. Having someone else do the testing can give you a sense on how something appears to someone else, which is important, because eventually your product will be used by others people (or lemurs).

My buddy Harry the hamadryas also helped me test my apparatus. He is going to be my research buddy when I'm in Durham, North Carolina so you'll see a lot of him. It seems like he had no problem doing the task at all! Let's hope the lemurs won't have any problems as well.

Harry testing the structural integrity of the apparatus.

Harry testing the apparatus. He approves.

Well, I guess my apparatus is good to go! Again, thanks to those that dropped by and helped me run a few trials. Guess what? This apparatus actually can be taken apart and lay flat for easy transport. I plan on checking it as a luggage when I fly to Durham on Saturday so my first stress is to anticipate retrieving this apparatus in one piece. Y'all pray for me!

For those that are interested in this apparatus, I will be presenting a poster on it at ASP 2015 in Bend, Oregon. Looking forward to answer questions and chat about it.

New Chapter

This time next week, I would have been in my hotel room in Durham, North Carolina getting ready for a new chapter in my academic and research life. I will be actually working hands on with primates instead of just observing them in zoos. This is going to be the first time I've ever left home to do research. While this not really considered "fieldwork", I am technically in the field ... but I get to go back to a nice extended stay hotel room with staff that caters to me. I will miss my husband and my cats dearly, and I only wish they could have come with me. But alas, sometimes you have to walk alone.

Photo from the Duke Lemur Center

But, let me back up just a bit ...

So, I will be doing some behavioral research at the Duke Lemur Center with ruffed lemurs (Varecia sp.) for my Master's thesis. I will be there on weekdays to train these lemurs to use my apparatus. Eventually, these lemurs would have known how to use the apparatus and testing phase begins. There is no telling when they'll be ready to move on to the testing phase, however, since these lemurs have never done the kinda stuff I want them to do so it might take a while. I'm optimistic that I can get this done in about 5 weeks, but who knows. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I will be blogging daily while I'm doing my research at the Duke Lemur Center. It's probably a good idea to keep a journal of what I did while I'm at the Duke Lemur Center but I think it'll be fun for y'all to follow along. Also because this is 2015 and I ain't about that LiveJournal life. Here are some, but not limited to, highlights of my adventure:

• Witness the first time I have a nervous breakdown!

• What will I do when I realizes that the nearest acceptable Asian food is more than an hour away?

• It's been a month and these lemurs have yet to learn to use the apparatus. Watch me have another nervous breakdown.

• Watch me post a selfie each day so you can see my outfits. I won't be packing a lot of clothes from NYC so watch me serve Walmart realness. Maybe I should start a hashtag for my selfies on Twitter. Maybe #PrancingPapioSelfie? ... I'll come back to this.

• Be there when I have my aha! moments with the lemurs or my thesis ideas!

• Join me as I explore Durham, North Carolina and the Research Triangle. Interesting sights, food and shopping. Yes, shopping. That's like totes important.

• Get exclusive photos and information of my research before I debut them in conferences! Of course, you'd have to understand that there are poachers out there and they are very mean people. I can only share so much.

Photo from the Duke Lemur Center

So, I'd like to personally invite you to be a part of my journey. See you very soon!