Clean Run - April 2017 - 11

What else does this mean in the dog
world? The more the dog has to concentrate, the slower he will perform,
for one thing. Now we understand the
reason for shorter sessions. When I espouse the benefits of shorter sessions to
my students, I frequently hear that they
don't work more than five to 10 minutes
at a time. I reply that this might be far
too long for dogs (and humans!) who are
still concentrating hard on assimilating
new material. A couple of minutes might
be plenty. And when I'm working a dog
in a very challenging situation, we often
start by working for mere seconds at a
time. I want a dog to be successful and to
remember how to "win" a training challenge, and if I deplete his resource pool
so that he can't maintain difficult System 2 thinking, weighing several potential actions and the costs and benefits of
each, he is more likely to revert to System 1 thinking and familiar habits, such
as lunging and snapping.
It also means that when the dog is engaged in serious mental effort, he will
fail at other tasks. This has nothing to
do with his training, his intelligence, his
obedience, his drive, or anything else;
it is a natural and unavoidable function
of his intense concentration. Kahneman
described an experiment in which human pupils were being measured as an
indicator of mental exertion, and participants were instructed to report when they
noticed a particular letter or image onscreen as they worked. He reported, "they
missed the target almost half the time
when mental effort was at its peak, although we had pictures of their wide-open
eye staring straight at it." If a dog misses
a well-trained cue while under mental
load, we shouldn't be upset, we should
recognize the mental challenge and perhaps take steps to better prepare him for
the challenge, or reduce the challenge,
or make sure we're asking for only one
task at a time. (And sometimes processing the environment for safety is a task!)
Being aware that we have two systems of
thinking, one wholly unconscious and one

unconsciously and invisibly influenced,
should make us far more cautious about
our knowledge and assumptions in nearly
every sphere, and particularly where we
have to work with other brains experiencing the same cognition phenomena!

What Can You Do About
Unconscious Bias?
"But what do I do about this unconscious
bias you say is everywhere in my life?"
The good news is, while we cannot eliminate the universality of System 1 thinking and its influence on our own behavior, we can choose to consciously engage
System 2 more often to critically review
the suggestions and influences of System
1. Kahneman recommends you assume
you are under a framing effect, and understand that it is impossible for you to
predict how you would behavior without
that effect, because your brain is already
affected. Then actively engage System 2
thinking by searching your memory or
outside data for contrasting memories,
case studies, etc. Try to call up examples
of the opposite of your impression or decision. This does not eliminate the bias,
but it can give you a chance to check the
question in a more analytical matter.
Note that this is often hard to do: for a
quick and obvious example, look at any
political discussion on social media! We
respond emotionally and with absolute
conviction, and we succeed only in confirming our own biases. I'm not saying
you have to change your party registration, but work through the mental exercise of why someone might hold the
opposite view or actively try to recall
examples of the opposite situation. It's
good practice for your dog training.
With our dogs, reject the first explanation which comes to mind for an unwanted behavior. Consider others. Remember that we are constantly and fiercely
searching for causality and something
to credit or blame, and we are inherently
uncomfortable with ambiguity and random occurrence, so we have a bias to

assign cause even where there is none.
Give yourself and your dog more allowance for fluke incidents.
We can also get around System 1 by
"tricking" it with an extremely narrowed
focus. Instead of talking about climate
change, and whatever scientific or political biases we have already internalized,
we could narrow the topic to a more specific question, perhaps "Has there been a
change in average square miles of Arctic
ice production over the 21st century?"
This is also how we address fear and
reactivity triggers in dogs-not "face
your trigger," but "can you concentrated on this single, fluent, and highlyreinforcing task while we gradually add
competing stimuli?" The narrow focus
allows the dog to disengage System 1
thinking, and its immediate and emotional response, and engage System 2,
which permits rational thinking, analysis
of reward opportunities, and ultimately
counter-conditioning.
The more I advance, the more comfortable I am saying, "I don't know"-and
sometimes just as important, "It doesn't
matter." Novice trainers frequently want
to know exactly why a particular dog is
afraid of men ("He's been abused!") or
dislikes children or isn't comfortable on
stairs. Our brains have an intense desire
to label, categorize, sort, and assign causality. But in reality, we may never know
the reason, and pretending we do will
only blind us in future System 1 decisions. It's much more important to narrow our focus and train the dog per what
we do know-which cues prompt which
behaviors, and which reinforcements are
effective in changing those behaviors -
than to assign a cause for the dog's present condition. That cause isn't going to
change how we train anyway-let it go!
We can't be entirely rid of our biases
and filters and invisible suggestions. But
knowing they exist can help us to question them, and knowing they exist in our
dogs and students can help us to understand their behavior and to set up better
training scenarios for our learners. D

Laura VanArendonk Baugh has played and trained in obedience, agility, rally obedience, tracking, Schutzhund, Mondioring, and Advanced Pet Wiggling. She currently
lives with a Labrador and a tailed Doberman. She will be speaking more on this topic at Clicker Expo, or look for her book on psychology and socialization coming in
2017. Find her at www.CaninesInAction.com.
April 17 | Clean Run

http://www.CaninesInAction.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - April 2017