What is instinctive drift and how did the Brelands discover it?

Instinctive drift refers to the tendency of animals to revert to their natural, instinctual behaviors, even when trained to perform a specific task. This phenomenon was discovered by Keller and Marian Breland, who were animal behaviorists and trainers.

The Brelands discovered instinctive drift while working with animals in the 1940s. They observed that even after successfully training animals to perform certain tasks, the animals would often revert to their natural instincts, causing them to deviate from the trained behavior. For example, they trained a raccoon to deposit coins into a piggy bank, but the raccoon would often stop and rub the coins together, displaying its natural instinct to wash food before eating it.

This led the Brelands to conclude that animals have a strong tendency to follow their natural instincts, even when trained to do otherwise. This discovery has had significant implications for animal training and behavior modification, as it highlights the importance of understanding and working with an animal's natural instincts rather than trying to completely override them.