#pavlovian response

[call-me-strega]

Dc x Dp Prompt #7: Pavlov’s Ghost Would be so Proud

In which Jazz tries to play matchmaker and accidentally classically conditions her new friend, Jason, into liking her brother.

Basically, Jazz is a college student at Gotham U when she shares a Lit class with Jason Peterson and they bond over deeply analyzing the characters. Jazz isn’t looking for a relationship (maybe she has a partner? Maybe she wants to focus on her studies? I’m low key considering aro-spec Jazz but who knows?) but she thinks Jason would get along great with her brother Danny and decides she wants to set them up.

She bribes Jason into coming over to study or hang out with the promise of fudge and take out and incidentally observes him deeply enjoying said food. She decides that since eating food puts Jason in a good mood that’s when it would be best to talk up her brother. So the next time Jason came over she casually steered the conversation toward her brother’s recent endeavors to transfer to Gotham in order to be closer to her because he’s so sweet and protective. She then offers Jason a slice of cheesecake she had leftover from a lunch out with the some friends which he graciously accepts. Then, just as he starts eating Jazz goes “oh here let me show you a picture of Danny!” and shows off her cute younger brother to her friend.

She doesn’t do it every time she and Jason meet because she figures that’s be too obvious but every time he comes over she offers him food knowing it puts him in a good mood so she can talk up her brother. It’s just that she says his name or shows him a picture of whatever Danny’s been up to recently while he’s eating.

Jazz just genuinely believes she’s just doing her best to be a good wing woman. It’s not until Danny actually moves to Gotham and Jazz decides to introduce them that she realizes what she’s done. She invites Jason over to come meet her brother and watches her how when he sees Danny he gives him an actual genuine smile, not a polite smile you give strangers, but one with actual joy. This is followed quickly by a sense of visible confusion in Jason‘s eyes and Jazz starts to connect the dots.

She excuses herself to the kitchen to go get the snacks she was planning to serve as she looks down at the tray she realizes ‘Oh my gosh I’ve been classically conditioning Jason to associate joy with my brother’! She puts together that an unconditioned stimulus = food (specifically served in her apartment) -> unconditoned response = Jason feels happy/good and that by talking about and showing off her brother every time Jason eats she made her brother a conditioned stimulus for Jason to associate with happiness.

She mentally groans realizing what she’s done but then looks back over at Danny and Jason hitting it off and can’t bring herself to fully regret it. This kinda was her goal as a wingwoman after all. She brings that snacks over to see a flush on her brother’s face and the tips of Jason’s ears red and thinks with a big grin ‘Hey! Maybe if this goes really well it’ll be a fun story to tell at their hypothetical wedding!’

[samsammysamson]

Road Work Ahead??

-🧩 (/ref)

Uh. Yeah. I sure hope it does.

[sportsandlaughs]

[charmac]

dammit I’m in a fucking church giggling about ur macden bottom x bottom ask if I go to hell it’s ur fault ;)

Damn church fr? Like that place in Charlie's Mom has Cancer? Where the infamous Charmacden hug happened? How do you sit there and not have.. thoughts the whole time

[stardew-bajablast]

i fell into a routine last year where i would come home from work every day and make a bowl of spicy ramen (my food hyperfixation at the time) and play the sims 4 (my game hyperfixation at the time) and now i have this pavlovian connection where every time i play ts4 i crave spicy ramen and every time i eat spicy ramen i get the sudden urge to play the sims

[luvh4nji]

i need seo chsngbin in a way that is concerning to organized religion

[braindeaddoggy]

i have been SO into classical conditioning lately so. poll!

[wherekizzialives]

Fascinating Footnotes

I doubt anyone who has been reading either my blog or my newsletter for any length of time is unaware that I like to use footnotes, both to cite sources and to add a bit of clarity/an amusing aside when I think putting it in the main text would break the flow. However I realised, thanks to a comment left on one be-footnoted post1, that I really didn’t have much idea of the history of the footnote…

[21st-century-minutiae]

Operant conditioning is the practice of repeatedly providing consistent stimulus (either positive or negative) in response to active behavior by the subject. For example, giving a child a treat when they wash the dishes, or spraying a cat with water when it scratches the furniture. This conditioning model is generally successful at teaching most animals of sufficient complexity to act or not act in certain ways. It fails when the response is not sufficiently linked to the act. It was most famously studied by B.F. Skinner, where he taught rats to press buttons to receive food.

This is opposed to Pavlovian conditioning, which is the practice of repeatedly providing consistent stimulus (either positive or negative) in conjunction with other stimulus, linking the two concepts together. For example, giving a child a treat on friday, or walking a dog whenever an alarm goes off.

Your characters should be somewhat familiar with the idea of conditioning, and how to train animals They probably know about Pavlov, but they might mix up Pavlovian Conditioning with Operant Conditioning, not realizing they are separate concepts. They might be familiar with Skinner boxes, but unless they have explicitly looked into psychology, this subject’s specifics do not come up much.

my brother had a brilliant idea that i wanted to share with other people who have four-legged family members: he trained our two cats to go directly to the door when they hear the fire alarm.

obviously at first the fire alarm sent them scrambling for cover, but he started slowly by giving them treats whenever it went off, when someone burned food or forgot to open the fireplace flu. he then progressed to calling them to the door to offer treats immediately after the alarm went off. and it actually wasn't too long before the cats voluntarily started going to the door upon hearing the alarm.

i think this was genius because in the event of a real emergency we know exactly where the cats will be and we will not have to waste precious time trying to find them to rescue them. i think this method would work equally well with dogs and probably other free-roaming pets such as rabbits, ferrets, etc. and i certainly encourage others to give it a shot!

[sushiisiu]

puppy instincts kicked in

[vanillachainsaw]

was out shopping with a client today when I heard the sweet whispers of this song and was instantly plunged into unreality

[qixjone]

will the dog always salivate when it hears the bell, or one day will it forget the bell and everything it means?

[maybeasunflower]

The simplest explanation is that it rings a bell you saw earlier, but you won't know until you see it.

Also, I want meringue nests now.

pavlovs dog and schrodinger's cat armed with chekhovs gun and occams razor to take down freud. new hit movie coming april 20th 2069

[ratsarehere-comingwerewolves]

experiencing a pavlovian response

[coffeeallaloneandlord]

Setting my alarm for the am

[kylewon-kenobi]

I'm a simple man. Every time I hear a clip of Mos Def, I have to listen to Black On Both Sides in its entirety.