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There may be a relation to military conditioning. I spent just a single week at a military academy introductory program in high school and when I returned home

There may be a relation to military conditioning. I spent just a single week at a military academy introductory program in high school and when I returned home I was "uncontrollably" (if I thought about it I could avoid doing it, but if I was on autopilot it happened by itself) squaring my corners and calling my family "sir" and "ma'am". The thing was, those patterns were my entire life for that week, and they were very deliberately drilled into me. Eventually they faded because they weren't reinforced outside of the academy (if anything, they were "deinforced"), but there may be a connection here. If someone spends many hours a day watching someone with particular quirks, it doesn't seem surprising (drawing parallels here to my experience) that those quirks may transfer because their brain starts to make those associations through observation. I would expect that stopping watching that particular person would probably let the transferred tics decay over a period of time (I'd give it a month).

kuhewa 4y ago
The article says that one thing differentiating these kids from acutal Tourette symptoms is that instead of symptoms waxing and waning, they only deteriorate. So that definitely squares
albert_e 4y ago
I read about "mirror neurons" where humans watching others do physical activity also have some of the same neural pathways fire. (V. S. RAMACHANDRAN) The author/researcher says he believes that is one of the main mechanisms of human learning (babies look at adults and imitate. Adults look at other adults and imitate. Subconsciously) What you are describing sounds very similar.
- boole1854 4y ago
  When I was raising my first child, I discovered a strange, apparently innate instinct which presumably is related to the mirror neurons: At some point the child gets old enough that you start to feed them 'baby food' on a spoon. The child isn't used to eating off of a spoon so for many weeks the process is messy. The initial challenge is getting them to open their mouth wide enough for the spoon to enter. And telling them 'open your mouth' is not particularly useful since they don't understand English at that age. Instead, the following instinct kicks in: as you approach their mouth with the spoon, your own mouth opens. They see your mouth open and then open theirs. The crazy part is that your own mouth opening happens involuntarily at the moment you want their mouth to open. It is physically difficult to suppress it, even if you try. I've also noticed the reverse. When the child gets a little older, they at some point want you to open your mouth, because they want to feed you something or they are curious about the inside of your mouth (this is a phase they go through). They seem to also involuntarily open their mouth wide when they want you to open yours.
adolph 4y ago
After your first sentence I thought the next would be “uncontrollably dropping two f-bombs for every noun and one for every verb” but the classic hallway “at ease, make way” is good fun too. It was hilarious how it could travel in waves up a hall ahead of the drill like a preceding shadow. My floor was enthusiastically and maliciously conformant and loud about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning
hrnnnnnn 4y ago
I love "deinforce" as an antonym to "reinforce". The standard way to say it would maybe be "deemphasised", but it lacks the symmetry of "deinforced".
- elliottkember 4y ago
  In behavioural psychology the antonym is "punish". There are positive/negative axes (whether a stimulus is added or removed) and reinforcement/punishment axes (whether the consequence is desired). Negative reinforcement is what boot camp uses. If you square your corners, you won't get shouted at. The "negative" aspect relates to the lack of shouting, and the reinforcement relates to the fact that the shouting is unpleasant. At home, positive punishment would be making fun of the tendencies, and negative punishment would have meant receiving no validation for the behaviour.
  - labster 4y ago
    I think GP meant deinforce to be a complimentary antonym, where you gave the gradable antonym.
    - CognitiveLens 4y ago
      @elliottkember is giving the correct complimentary antonym to "reinforce" in behavioral psych - "punishment" reduces the frequency of a behavior, "reinforcement" increases the frequency. There's a spectrum, but the terms only refer to the opposing effects on behavior rates. In the GP's comment, "deinforcement" appears to also mean "actively reducing the frequency of the behavior".
jelliclesfarm 4y ago
Reminds me of how Americans spend a couple of months in the UK and return with an affected British accent. Before social media, there were movies that molded society. Bollywood and more recently K-dramas/K-pop have influenced an entire generation. Often these were used for shaping a younger generation as a long term strategy for a desirable adult demographic. To a certain extent, it is happening in our American public school system. Everyone who comes through it are kind of identical. It may not be apparent to those who have never stepped out of the States, but it is obvious to those outside or have known other cultures. With social media impacts, its effect is like an oil spill. Even if you can contain it, it will be messy, expensive and traumatic for years and years. This is a Faustian bargain we have made.
- filoleg 4y ago
  > Reminds me of how Americans spend a couple of months in the UK and return with an affected British accent. As someone who moved to the US in his mid-teens (from a non-english-speaking country), that's quite literally me with British movies. After watching a few over a weekend, Mondays are usually rough, as I end up saying random words in British accent and immediately correcting myself.
- bawolff 4y ago
  I feel that might be overstating things. Otherwise we would all be speaking in a transatlantic accent.

kuhewa 4y ago

The article says that one thing differentiating these kids from acutal Tourette symptoms is that instead of symptoms waxing and waning, they only deteriorate. So that definitely squares

albert_e 4y ago

I read about "mirror neurons" where humans watching others do physical activity also have some of the same neural pathways fire. (V. S. RAMACHANDRAN) The author/researcher says he believes that is one of the main mechanisms of human learning (babies look at adults and imitate. Adults look at other adults and imitate. Subconsciously) What you are describing sounds very similar.

boole1854 4y ago
When I was raising my first child, I discovered a strange, apparently innate instinct which presumably is related to the mirror neurons: At some point the child gets old enough that you start to feed them 'baby food' on a spoon. The child isn't used to eating off of a spoon so for many weeks the process is messy. The initial challenge is getting them to open their mouth wide enough for the spoon to enter. And telling them 'open your mouth' is not particularly useful since they don't understand English at that age. Instead, the following instinct kicks in: as you approach their mouth with the spoon, your own mouth opens. They see your mouth open and then open theirs. The crazy part is that your own mouth opening happens involuntarily at the moment you want their mouth to open. It is physically difficult to suppress it, even if you try. I've also noticed the reverse. When the child gets a little older, they at some point want you to open your mouth, because they want to feed you something or they are curious about the inside of your mouth (this is a phase they go through). They seem to also involuntarily open their mouth wide when they want you to open yours.

adolph 4y ago

After your first sentence I thought the next would be “uncontrollably dropping two f-bombs for every noun and one for every verb” but the classic hallway “at ease, make way” is good fun too. It was hilarious how it could travel in waves up a hall ahead of the drill like a preceding shadow. My floor was enthusiastically and maliciously conformant and loud about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

hrnnnnnn 4y ago

I love "deinforce" as an antonym to "reinforce". The standard way to say it would maybe be "deemphasised", but it lacks the symmetry of "deinforced".

elliottkember 4y ago
In behavioural psychology the antonym is "punish". There are positive/negative axes (whether a stimulus is added or removed) and reinforcement/punishment axes (whether the consequence is desired). Negative reinforcement is what boot camp uses. If you square your corners, you won't get shouted at. The "negative" aspect relates to the lack of shouting, and the reinforcement relates to the fact that the shouting is unpleasant. At home, positive punishment would be making fun of the tendencies, and negative punishment would have meant receiving no validation for the behaviour.
- labster 4y ago
  I think GP meant deinforce to be a complimentary antonym, where you gave the gradable antonym.
  - CognitiveLens 4y ago
    @elliottkember is giving the correct complimentary antonym to "reinforce" in behavioral psych - "punishment" reduces the frequency of a behavior, "reinforcement" increases the frequency. There's a spectrum, but the terms only refer to the opposing effects on behavior rates. In the GP's comment, "deinforcement" appears to also mean "actively reducing the frequency of the behavior".

jelliclesfarm 4y ago

Reminds me of how Americans spend a couple of months in the UK and return with an affected British accent. Before social media, there were movies that molded society. Bollywood and more recently K-dramas/K-pop have influenced an entire generation. Often these were used for shaping a younger generation as a long term strategy for a desirable adult demographic. To a certain extent, it is happening in our American public school system. Everyone who comes through it are kind of identical. It may not be apparent to those who have never stepped out of the States, but it is obvious to those outside or have known other cultures. With social media impacts, its effect is like an oil spill. Even if you can contain it, it will be messy, expensive and traumatic for years and years. This is a Faustian bargain we have made.

filoleg 4y ago
> Reminds me of how Americans spend a couple of months in the UK and return with an affected British accent. As someone who moved to the US in his mid-teens (from a non-english-speaking country), that's quite literally me with British movies. After watching a few over a weekend, Mondays are usually rough, as I end up saying random words in British accent and immediately correcting myself.
bawolff 4y ago
I feel that might be overstating things. Otherwise we would all be speaking in a transatlantic accent.