So I've been studying.
Much.

Remember high school psychology class, with Pavlov and his drooling dogs? Classical Conditioning, they called it. I shall never forget, because my psych teacher, Mr. Murphy, ingrained the response sequence into our gritty, substance-infested, oozing brain holes, by repeating these words over and over, while jumping across the room:

Bell---->Meat Powder----->Salivation
Bell---->Meat Powder----->Salivation
Bell---->Meat Powder----->Salivation

Now I'm studying the grown up, graduate school version of this dog lover's classic.

The practice exam I took last night, posed this butt clencher:

1. In the aversive counterconditioning of a fetish, the fetish object is the:

A. conditioned stimulus.
B. unconditioned stimulus.
C. conditioned response.
D. unconditioned response.

The correct is answer is "A". With this explanation:

The aversive conditioning of a fetish involves pairing an aversive stimulus with the fetish object until the object also comes to elicit the response of aversion. The fetish object is the conditioned stimulus, since it comes to evoke aversion through conditioning (i.e. pairings). The aversive stimulus is the unconditioned stimulus, since it elicits aversion naturally, without conditioning.

And got it right. Yeah. Here's how: First I mentally recalled the image of Mr. Murphy, circa 1974, hopping across the classroom. Then, I wondered "What the fuck is meat powder?" And then, I took a wild guess.

I think it's gonna all right.

Now here's a little Meme for your WTF pleasure.

Labels: That Damn Test, WTF Wednesday