Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Boy  My understanding is that it was randomly determined also when the beep periods themselves were going to be. "These 'beep' times were within a pre-arranged period, between 45 and 90 minutes long. This period commenced 80 minutes to 170 minutes after PS had gone out."
You're making it sound as if the owner came home approximately the same time on every trial, but if you look at the graphs, the beep periods start at quite varying times, at one time 90 minutes into the trial, at another time 140 minutes into the trial, at yet another time 110 minutes into the trial, at another time 160 minutes into the trial, and so on. Almost every time, the peak of Jaytee's waiting behaviour corresponds to the homecoming of the owner, although this waiting behavior rarely lasts more than 5 to 10 minutes. |
My point is very simple. The periods where there was some randomisation were not very large. Only one was 90 minutes the rest were closer to 45 minutes. These periods had been prearranged to occur when the owner was available to come home. The majority occurred in a small time period which coincided with a peak in the normal routine homecomings as seen from the preliminary investigations.
The owner knew when the start of the beep period was going to occur. It is possible that this expectation was unconciously communicated to the dog. The only effect of the randomistaion was a standard deviation of about 11 minutes in the distribution of return times from the start of the beep period.