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Pavlov's dog and the conditioned response

zurb

Eschewer of Obfuscation
I just got thinking on my way home from work - I'm still getting my ideas together....
So in Palov's famous experiment, he got a dog to salivate by associating the sound of a bell with food. Anyone who has had a dog knows how excited they get when they hear 'walk' or you grab the lead.
I wonder if this is what it's like for NTs? Do they get some sort of emotional or physical response when they hear someone's name or voice? Do they get really excited by the concept of a party? etc?
I might in my head know I enjoyed something last time, but it's a cognitive knowledge. It doesn't evoke emotions or create a desire or motivation to do it again.
As far as people are concerned, once I'm more than an hour away, I know they are there, but its only a head knowledge.
Is this just me, or is it an aspie thing? Is this why 'conventional' motivation techniques don't work on us?
Thoughts?
 
Even with cognition, people do react aspie or no. Commercials for example, when I'm not hungry and I see a commercial for some sort of food (even types of food I don't eat) I become hungry. Then the question becomes do I act on the conditioned response? Nine times out of ten I do not, but does being aware of the manipulation engenders a later reaction? It might, as I recognize a product name while shopping.

It's the same with coercive sales calls that attempt to convince you that you want something, or online 'latest' little toys that everyone has. Do you have a cell? Then you have also fallen prey to what everyone else has or wants. It's endemic in the culture to learn to manipulate our wants and desires. Often with very little coaxing our hand reaches for the recognizable product being flogged, being aware is only the first step. Actively fighting the thought is the next.
 
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I wouldn't say that it is either ND or NT in nature from my own experiences with it.

I guess you never felt the accelerated heartbeat,focus and the lump in your throat that comes on with motorsports participation.
G-forces to me are the most thrilling part of my existence,with emotions coming into play before during and after that experience.
Does it stir emotions with a desire to feel it again? Hell yes!

I can go from Zero to Zen by the first bend on a motorcycle. A lot of emotions come into play on a bike. Often when I push a shopping cart in the grocery store,I imagine that I am holding the handlebars of a bike and twist the throttle when I want to go faster or whip around a bend :D
 
Technically I'd think most anyone would react favorably to the prospect of a leisure activity as opposed to mundane work.

Although leisure activities for Neurotypicals are more prone to include fellowship than a Neurodiverse craving for solitude.
 
I wonder if this is what it's like for NTs? Do they get some sort of emotional or physical response when they hear someone's name or voice? Do they get really excited by the concept of a party? etc?
My NT wife said yes when I asked about this once. She said there's some kind of emotional something (I couldn't relate to it, and so forgot the details) when she sees someone she recognizes too.

Do you get an emotional or physical response when you have to talk in front of a crowd? (same thing, but negative instead of positive). I used to, but I don't anymore.
 
Maybe its the things that we get excited about? NTs will get excited about people, we get excited about things. For me, its currently writing batch files. Or maybe I'm just being OCD?
I guess I've had a negative association with seeing someone before - it wasn't that the person was bad, but what they represented.
Again, maybe we can feel anything an NT does, but as per normal aspieness, its a question of extremes (and subject matter).
 
Maybe its the things that we get excited about? NTs will get excited about people, we get excited about things. For me, its currently writing batch files. Or maybe I'm just being OCD?

Personally I'm apt to think that disdain or indifference to fellowship and socialization in general strikes me as being central to Neurodiversity rather than consideration of comorbid conditions like OCD.

But then of all my manifestations of OCD none really involve socialization for better or worse. Though at times I still grapple with social anxiety, as to whether it's an aspect of autism or strictly a separate and comorbid condition. Having such anxiety certainly diminishes one's desire to be social.
 
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Reinforcement theory works the same way. You can train rats to switch on lights and press levers 20 times, as long as there is a positive reward such as food. That is how circus animals are trained. The motivator is food and the motivation is to behave in ways to obtain the food. That is a very poor understanding of motivation.

The belief is that humans behave the same way and so can be motivated to work harder if more of an extrinsic reward (money) is offered as a motivator (incentive), provided they know what type of behavior is required.

As far as I am concerned, that is manipulation, coercion, driving people to behave in certain ways, but it does not necessarily mean the person wants to behave in that way, i.e. wants to do the work. In fact, my own research has revealed that in eight experiments out of nine, an increase in money offered in order to stimulate increased performance actually led to poorer performance.t had the opposite effect.

The reason is that true motivators are intrinsic rewards. People will work harder when they enjoy the work, or when they find some meaningful purpose to the work - simply because they want to do the work. True motivation is about pull and not push, draw and not drive. Nobody likes to be driven by anything, money included.

I understand Aspies to be far more focussed on the intrinsic, probably because the focus is much more intense and less on material enjoyment. But, I generalize......
 

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