Abstract
The resident pod of dolphins at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD are cared for by a team of trainers and veterinarians who provide them with daily diets and medical care. The pod spends time in training sessions each day working with trainers to maintain healthy exercise habits, social behaviors, and mental stimulation. One such exercise that was created to increase critical thinking in dolphins was “Wait & Go”. In this conceptual behavior, when a dolphin receives a Discriminatory Stimulus (SD) for “Wait”, it must ignore any further SDs until given the “Go” SD. This behavior requires dolphins to reevaluate what they have been previously taught about immediately responding to SDs.
This project focused on variables that may affect how quickly the dolphins at the National Aquarium were able to learn “Wait & Go”. The success rate of the “Wait, Go” behavior was compared to variables that ranged from biologic factors such age and sex to environmental factors such as time and habitat. Sessions during which the behavior was trained were recorded on an opportunistic basis.
Results revealed that age, sex, time, and habitat all exerted influence over success rates to varying degrees. Further, success during the first half of the behavior, the “Wait”, influenced success rates of the entire behavior. Sex was the factor found to most significantly influence the success rate of the behavior, with all three females from the study succeeding at higher rates than the two males.