Valentine One: Karen Pryor

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Karen Pryor

What the dog trainers are calling clicker training is an application of behavior analysis that was initially invented and developed more than thirty years ago, by Keller Breland, Marian Breland Bailey, and Bob Bailey. It first reached widespread use in the training of marine mammals, which is where I learned it myself. Although the marine mammal trainers use a whistle, not a clicker, their training relied on the same principles and is really exactly the same as what people are now calling clicker training.

Somehow, however, the technology did not transfer from marine mammal trainers to the general public: perhaps because of the focus of the trainers themselves, and perhaps simply because not very many people need to train dolphins.