Animal Training and its Cognitive Implications in the Early Modern Iberian World

Early modern Iberian and colonial authors had a broad understanding of animal training anticipating twentieth-century principles including Pavlovian Classical Conditioning and Skinnerian Operant Conditioning. Using examples from Fernández de Oviedo, Leal Medel, Argote de Molina, Cervantes, De Zayas and others, I show how these principles and methods were used with discrimination depending on the species of animal and usually in regard to the animal's relationship to its human master. In broad strokes, what came to be known as positive reinforcement using rewards was typically employed successfully for animals that people prized and cared for (paradigmatically, dogs and horses) while punishment and negative reinforcement were used for farm animals engaging in repetitive tasks that the animal didn't want to perform (e. g. oxen). In some cases, negative reinforcement and/or punishment were used for skills typically associated with positive reinforcement, as in the case of wild jaguars and lions trained to hunt in royal hunting parties. However, as these examples show, cases of large cats trained to be tamed hunters were not highly successful.