Poisoned Cue

A "Poisoned Cue" is what happens when you have an R+ trained and appetitively conditioned behavior but somewhere in the ABC (cue-behavior-R+) cycle and aversive slipped in, intentionally or not. Once the aversive begins to condition its way into this appetitive cycle, conflict is created. The horse is stuck between avoiding the aversive and trying to earn the appetitive. So we will begin to see conflict behaviors, like reluctance to respond to the cue, offering the wrong behavior with the cue, doing the behavior slightly wrong, or showing stress signals. We need to take this seriously because it is beginning to tear down the strength of our trained behavior, making it less reliable when we need it. Not to mention it is clearly creating an amount of stress to our horse that doesn't need to be there.

An example is, you taught your horse to back up following a target, then put it on cue. Your horse regularly backs up properly in response to this cue. But now there is some discomfort in their body and as the act of backing up is aversive. We didn't know that our cue was getting poisoned, but we will see in those signs. Reluctancy, latency, trying different behaviors or changing the behavior, and those important stress signals. Its important to stop at this point and assess where the aversive creeped in by accident and clear that up where possible.

What do you think the most common poisoned cue is for most animals?