Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist that is renowned for his landmark study on conditioning. He conducted this hallmark study during the twentieth century. The interesting thing about this study was the fact that Pavlov was not even studying the effects of conditioning when he launched the study.
He was actually studying the physiological effects of eating in the dogs. He began by studying digestion, but Pavlov began to observe that the salivation of the dogs was very curious. He would place meat powder or some other food morsel on the dog's tongue, waiting for the salivation to occur.
He began to see that the dogs were salivating as soon as he entered the room, which was before any food was even in sight. Since salivation in any animal is a reflex, Pavlov decided to probe deeper into the conditioning of the dogs. This later became known as classical conditioning.
Pavlov's study is also known as Pavlovian conditioning. This study is one of the most used studies in classical conditioning. Conditioning is a type of learning. Basically, what this study proved was that the dogs became conditioned by Pavlov to have expectations. When he entered the room, the dogs expected food; therefore, they began salivating in expectation. After he noticed that the meat powder had this effect, he decided to try a different neutral stimulus.
How does this apply to the Asylum, you ask? Simple. For some time now Aegis has had hot chicks in his avatar. I have come to expect, that every time I see Aegis' name in a thread that I see womanly goodness. As a result of this repeated occurance over time, every time I see "Aegis" I get a woody.
Just thought you would all like to know that.
This applied to Nobby as well, but as a result of the recent rash of funny looking men in his avatar, I no longer pitch a tent when I see his name.
Edited, Wed May 3 14:58:29 2006 by Kakar