If anyone ever invents an overshadowing bingo game, Lewis and I win!
About overshadowing
Sometimes a stimulus we try to classic have more than an aspect that can be sensed, as an object that can be seen and smelled. This kind of stimulus is called a compound stimulus. The phenomenon of oversight can occur when compound stimuli are conditioned because one of the simple stimuli is likely to prevent the others/si to be conditioned in full or at all.
I recently came across a situation where potentially five different stimuli “competed” to be classically conditioned. And of these five, the one who is most likely to “win” the conditioning, not the one I needed most. I had to tackle the problem because it was in a training project that was important to Lewis’ well -being.
Oromucosal Medicine Administration
Lewis has been diagnosed with sound phobia for fireworks and thunderstorms, and one of his medicine is to be supplied topically to his chewing gum and cheek tissue.
The instructions for managing this medication require that the human wear protection gloves not to touch the medical gel that can be absorbed through, for example, a cut in the skin. Gloves are a new thing for Lewis.
I was thinking if I should use classic conditioning to help him have a positive reaction to the gloves and gathered what I needed. I use available kitchen gloves for a lot of tasks, so that’s what I got out. Whoa! These gloves make a marked noisy rattle when touched or manipulated. You can’t even get them out of the box without the dog hearing them.
You can probably see where this is going.
I wanted Lewis to have good feelings about the gloves. But which aspect of them? How many things are potentially different for a dog when you put a glove on your hand for a household task, one that includes putting your finger in the dog’s mouth? How about:
- The sight of the glove on hand
- the sound The Glove is doing
- The feeling of being touched by a gloved hand
- The smell of the glove
- The taste of the glove
We have potentially involved all five senses; The gloves present a compound stimulus.
Bingo?
How about another list? How many things about the gloves can bother Lewis? No need to repeat; It’s the same list. But knowing him, I would guess that having a glossy finger that became stuck in his mouth between his cheek and gums would abound him the most. But of all these, the sound often happens first and is super prominent. How can I classically condition the mouth touch without being overshadowed by the crack of the glove?
The environment would like a word
The plastic kitchen gloves I have are terrible for the environment. I would make another decision now. There is no perfect disposable glove yet, but Latex is made of rubber and some latex gloves can be biodegradable. Recyclable rubber gloves would be better than what I have, but they are too bulky for this job with this dog. Feel free to comment with suggestions.
Solutions to the overshadowing problem
So how do I make sure that Lewis has positive feelings about being touched (in the mouth) of the gloves, given that classic conditioning is more likely to attach the sound of them? Here are the opportunities I have considered.
Different gloves: I’m sure some of you internal scream a solution. Get different gloves! More quiet! Good idea. I am looking for a better choice. But in the meantime, I will continue with what I have.
Solution: There are some things I could try to do about the sound. I could take the gloves in a long part of the house and play masking sounds while I did, just to be sure. Then I could turn to Lewis and make the step in the plan comes next. Show him a gloved hand, treat. Or touch him with a gloved finger, treat. It could prevent some of the predictable force by rambling the gloves. But when I show him or touch him, the gloves will still make noise.
Use an Operant Training Plan: This is the solution I chose. The gloves were not scary to Lewis; They were just new and weird. So rather than aiming for classic conditioning, I went after desensitization combined with operant conditioning.
For our first session, I threw him a few goodies when I got the gloves out. Then I reinforced to sniff the glove, nose targeting the glove while holding it loose and nose targeting it while on my hand. Then I asked him to make a chin rest on a towel in the lap with the glove on top. Lewis said, “This is easy money!”
In the next sessions I had the glove on my right hand and touched his cheek while holding his muzzle with my left. We had previously worked with this step without the glove.
The video includes excerpts from the three training sessions where we went on from him and accepted my finger in the mouth to accept my glossed finger in the mouth. We spent six to seven minutes of training over three sessions, which was more time than he needed.
Look with sound if you want to hear how noisy the gloves are (and hear me say, “Good boy!” About a thousand times).
Link to the video.
Forward
The operant work of the gloves made them predict for good things (classic conditioning rode with). This work gave Lewis a big foundation for the next step: putting a syringe between his cheek and chewing gum while wearing gloves. The glorious finger was a good early replacement for the syringe.
Connection stimuli
More contemporary stimuli happen all the time. When you present an object, you can bet that most dogs will smell it as well as to see it. Lots of visual stimuli also make sounds. As a textbook points out, it is almost impossible to avoid more stimuli (Pierce & Cheney, 2008, p. 58). This experience has made me think much more about them. The bingo game is not that unusual. I’m glad I figured out a way of winning this time.
Thank you to the several professionals who provided materials and direct help to Lewis’ household education. I couldn’t have done it alone!
Copyright 2025 Eileen Anderson
References
- Pierce, WD, & Cheney, CD (2008). Behavioral analysis and learning (4th ed.). Psychology Press.