different—the trainer would blow a whistle and give the
porpoise a fish. As soon as the porpoise repeated the behavior,
the trainer would once again blow a whistle and give the
porpoise another fish. In this way the porpoise learned what it
had to do to get its reward and would demonstrate the new
behavior in order to obtain the fish.
There were usually several shows each day so at the next
show naturally the porpoise would swim out into the pool and
begin to demonstrate the new behavior that had previously
earned the fish. Of course, this time the trainer wanted to
demonstrate to the audience how the porpoise learned new
tricks and consequently didn’t give it the fish. The porpoise
would become increasingly frustrated and toward the end of the
show would do something else: jump out of the water, for
example. As soon as it demonstrated this new behavior the
trainer would blow the whistle and give it a fish. The porpoise
quickly realized that this was what it needed to do and would
continue to jump out of the water, and each time it did so the
trainer blew the whistle and gave it a fish.
At each subsequent show the same pattern was repeated, the
porpoise getting increasingly frustrated each time until in
desperation it performed a new behavior by chance, at which
point the trainer immediately blew the whistle and gave it a fish.
The frustration in the porpoise increased to such a point that
occasionally the trainer would break the procedure and give the
porpoise a fish without its demonstrating a new behavior.
Eventually after many shows the porpoise seemed to change
dramatically and became very excited as it was waiting to be let
into the show pool. When it was released into the pool the
porpoise put on an amazing performance that included eight
completely new behaviors, some of which had never been
witnessed before.
When asked about the unearned fish the trainer replied,
“Those fish were to maintain my relationship with the porpoise.
Only by maintaining our relationship can we communicate in
this way and achieve the kind of results you have just seen.”90 NLP AT WORK