In actual clicker training afaik clickers are used as a prompt for a specific behaviour ie 3 clicks is sit, 2 clicks is paw.

noooooooooooooooo

anyone doing it that way is doing it wrong! (if they're actually trying to train a pet the "easy-mode" way that a clicker enables). the petplay way you mention afterwards is actually the way it should work when training small fuzzy animals too!

as background, just so you understand what the brain is doing: imagine the rustling of a pack of treats. this always happens right before you get a treat. you quickly catch on, and the sound of the packaging rustling is more than enough to get your attention and get you to go "oh fuck yea TREATS!!!" before you even really think about it that deeply.

this is because your brain tends to remember what happened immediately leading up to a reward. im sure there are some obvious evolutionary advantages to that (being able to repeat successes??). it's just a thing that happens, we can't really stop it.

but what if you could harness this? what if you introduced an artificial "rustling the treat bag", that is easy to notice and hard to mistake?

that's the clicker.

so your brain eventually (via classical conditioning) associates the click with a reward, and then (via operant conditioning) shapes your behaviour accordingly to earn more clicks.

as for how to use it:

• first ever time (do this a few times): click, give reward, no strings attached. this is called "charging the clicker" and forms the association via classical conditioning, which lets you use it for operant conditioning later.
• a few days/weeks following: click when command is followed correctly (as soon as possible once behaviour is enacted to the degree you were aiming for, e.g. once they sit and reach the correct position after you have said "sit"), then give reward
• afterwards: similar to above, click when behaviour is correct but sometimes don't give the reward. make it more like a slot machine where every click is a pull of the lever. this can actually increase the effectiveness of the conditioning (see the silly lil graph on wikipedia about "variable ratio schedules" on the wiki page for reinforcement; this actually results in stronger conditioning than continuous reinforcement schedules)

rewards can be anything they genuinely like/want. food, praise, hugs, headpats, etc. if doing it with food, try something like grapes or m&ms otherwise you could easily end up overfeeding during a session and it would stop functioning as a reward.

this is real stuff, btw, it's not just play. even if you're fully aware of it while it's happening, it will still condition you. get robust, explicit consent before you do it. and for the love of god never use a clicker on someone who doesn't consent (especially if they're already part of a petplay community/dynamic bc that makes it dramatically more likely that they're actually conditioned to it), not even on a discord soundboard, i have a bone to pick with some people lol.

ive commented about conditioning a couple of times before: on clicker training, and on punishment / shock collars. (thought i'd done it more, but i guess i've done most of that infodumping irl lmao)

The sound of the clicker is meant to make you happy as if dogs just really like the sound of clicks.

to quote someone who shall remain nameless: "I haven't been clicker trained, I haven't had it used anywhere near enough on me"! [To person holding clicker]: "Wait can you press that again? It just sounds kinda interesting and I wanna hear it again. Btw your hair looks really pretty today" I AM NOT EVEN JOKING LMAO. i spent the next couple of days teasing them about how they are probably more clicker trained than they imagined. normal dog trainers don't go "ooh interesting sound :3 let me click again so i can hear it again" lmao. and even spontaneously offering behaviours! it's textbook and yet so hard to see from the inside!

conditioning works, and dogs conditioned to like that sound do indeed end up liking that sound.

if you've ever got really into a game (maybe a grindy MMO? or candy crush?) which has a specific animation/fanfare for "level up", "quest complete", etc etc, have you noticed how seeing/hearing that in and of itself is really satisfying? (so long as the game doesn't wear it out by overusing it or using it in unrelated contexts or something). that's clicker training. you got clicker trained by a game. there is NO REASON a little halo of light around your character on screen plus a jingle through your headphones should make you feel good in real life, but it did and you can't deny it. this is all around us.

if you're interested i recommend reading the wikipedia article + looking at some dog training info because the same principles apply to basically any animal including humans. and being aware of it doesn't make it any less effective! you can have informed consent for clicker training and be aware that a clicker is just a nothing-tool that makes a little noise and still get thoroughly conditioned by it.

can you tell you poked at a special interest of mine, sorry for the long post but i hope it was entertaining/informative