Animal trainers Keller and Marian Breland tried to train a raccoon to pick up two coins and deposit them in a metal box. However, instead of dropping the coins in the box, the raccoon would rub the coins together, much as raccoons do with their food in the wild. This tendency of the raccoon to revert to its natural behavior patterns is termed:

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Instinctive drift refers to the phenomenon where animals trained to perform a certain behavior may revert to their natural instincts and behaviors. In this case, the raccoon's natural instinct to rub objects together overrode its training to deposit coins in the box. Extinction refers to the process of a learned behavior disappearing due to lack of reinforcement. Latent learning refers to learning that occurs without reinforcement and is only demonstrated later when a reinforcer is introduced. Learned helplessness refers to the state in which an organism gives up trying to escape or avoid negative stimuli because it has learned that its behavior is ineffective.

Animal Trainers Keller and Marian Breland Tried to Train a Raccoon