Has anyone seen the webiste Epona.tv?  It's a good (and slightly controversial) equine site with lots of great articles and videos. The videos are subscription only, but many of the articles are free to access. 

There was an interesting poll conducted at the bottom of the home page, designed to test the reader's understanding of learning theory.  The poll asked the reader which of the following four examples given could be classed as negative reinforcement.

The results at time of writing were:
(A)  A prompt slap at the right moment - 43.7%
(B) Ignoring the horse - 7%
(C) Giving the rein - 24.6%
(D) Not giving the horse a treat - 24.6%

Do you know which is the correct answer? If you do, then you're doing better than 88% of accredited riding coaches in Australia, according to a research paper by Amanda Warren-Smith and Paul McGreevy (you can read the abstract

here

At the moment, horse training is largely based on the use of aversive (unpleasant) stimuli - for example using the leg or spurs to motiviate the horse to move forward, the use of the bit to slow the horse, or the use of the whip when a horse refuses a jump.  Using learning theory terminology in these examples, the use of the leg or hand would generally be called negative reinforcement, and the use of the whip would be called positive punishment.

"Positive punishment ??" I hear you say!  This may seem counter-intuitive, and yes, learning theory terminology is confusing!  It helps to think of negative (-) and positive (+) in the mathematical sense of removing or adding something. 

Positive punishment is where an aversive stimulus is added, for example the horse is hit when it refuses to jump.  The goal with punishment is to decrease the likelihood of a particular behaviour occurring in future.  In this case, the rider would be aiming to decrease the frequency of the horse losing momentum into the jump and refusing.  Positive punishment punishes the target behaviour.

Negative reinforcement on the other hand, is where an aversive stimulus is removed, an example being that you take the pressure off the reins once the horse has performed a halt.  By removing the rein pressure immediately as the horse stops, you encourage the horse to respond even more quickly in future, as it realises that it can get rid of the uncomfortable pressure on its mouth by performing the halt.  So with the use of well-timed negative reinforcement, you can increase the likelihood of the 'stop' behaviour occurring in future.  Negative reinforcement reinforces (strengthens) the target behaviour.

Decades ago, dog training had a similar focus on aversive training tools and techniques, with prong collars, choke chains, and large sticks all seen as popular training tools.  Fortunately, there has been a lot of study into canine behaviour over the past few decades, and now dog trainers largely base their methods around something called 'positive reinforcement' - where the desired behaviour is shaped by using well-timed rewards.

It seems as though the same change may be occuring in the equestrian world.  I personally know of several people who have incorporated positive reinforcement into their training, and are attempting to minimise any aversives used. 

Do you, or anyone you know of, use learning theory to help you effectively train your horse?