3 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you, Christine. Only one correction. The conditioning process at work here would not be called "negative reinforcement" (remember, negative reinforcement *increases* the probability of a response occurring by *removing* a stimulus; discontinuing an obnoxious noise when a rat presses a lever would be a good example of "negative reinforcement.") Instead, the conditioning process at work in the present sample would be called "negative punishment" (i.e., the *decreasing* of a probability of a response occurring through *removal* of a stimulus--here, the captured animal). To complicate matters somewhat further, there is probably also some positive punishment (i.e., decreasing probability of a response by introducing a stimulus (here, likely, some sort of aversive action on the part of the falconer toward the bird to assure it does not consume the prey)."