Hacker News Reader

Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

From my reading of the article (which is hard to parse not being an expert) it seems there is a German YouTuber with Tourette's who also on his YouTube shows displays non-tourette's tics. And these tics are being copied by other young people watching his shows, and being presented as Tourette's until they arrive at the clinic where these experts go "hang on this kid does not have Tourette's but does have tics similar to the German youtuber above"

So, the weird thing is not they pick up someone else's tics but they cannot get rid of them.

Learnt behaviour, copying, or physical tics that once learnt get stuck in the brain?

View on HN

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).

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".

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.

I think GP meant deinforce to be a complimentary antonym, where you gave the gradable antonym.

@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".

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

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

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.

> 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.

I feel that might be overstating things. Otherwise we would all be speaking in a transatlantic accent.

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.

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.

It's plausible [1] [2].

I am by all accounts neurotypical (except perhaps for a touch of Aspergers) but I have an involuntary tic. Every now and then (like once or twice a week) a memory of some incredibly stupid thing that I once did -- sometimes decades ago -- will pop into my head and before I can re-establish conscious control I'll make a vocalization that sounds like a cross between a whimper and a sneeze. It's kind of embarrassing, but usually I cover it up with a cough afterwards. I don't think anyone has ever actually noticed except me.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earworm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought

I have this happen to I've always assumed it was an anxiety response. The interesting things is I am able to control it to some extent, I used to hit myself, now I mutter profanities. Anyone else do something like this?

Yup. I just say fuck and shake my head. Apparently this is rather normal behavior...

According to who? I have the same issue and it's annoying.

Well sure? Remembering embarrassing stuff is annoying.

I've found that sitting with the thought for a little while and processing the emotion prevents it from coming up again. You can't just remember that girl in first year of uni that made an effort to hug you every day and flee the thought every time, painful as it is. You have to sit there and go through it. Yes I was young and stupid, but the reason I even cringe thinking about it is because I am now better. And that is ok.

Yes, according to WHO. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240003927

That's a good one :D

Well, there are a bunch of us in this thread, and I've heard many people talk about it over the years both IRL and elsewhere on the internet. Maybe "normal" is the wrong word, but it does seem to be exceedingly common.

https://img.ifunny.co/images/81b1345612c2c66153ac111e99d41b2...

https://www.thecut.com/article/how-to-stop-reliving-embarras...

https://harleytherapy.com/blog/posts/cringe-attacks

Is this not totally normal and very common though? This exact thing happens to me all the time, with some specific memories linked to seemingly random acts like shaving the left side of my neck.

Yes, loads of people get this. A couple of random reddit threads:

https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/hzgm1n/how_to...

https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/2nnff4/how_to...

I do it. When i'm alone, and one of those thoughts hits, me, i often vocalise a bit. If i'm in company i just wince (if i made a noise in front of other people when i thought of something embarrassing, that would be embarrassing, so that would lead to a sort of embarrassment Kessler syndrome).

> embarrassment Kessler syndrome

Thank you, this is a genuinely great turn of phrase.

I have no idea if it's common or not. It might be. It's not the sort of thing people generally discuss. This is the first time I've ever talked about it.

A (long) time ago, I noticed something not dissimilar in my behavior. I've never noticed it in others, so it quite likely that your behavior goes unnoticed too.

But what I did was tell myself to not react like that again next time. Of course, that didn't work, but it made me notice it better. And after repeating that for some time, I had timely control over the reaction (not over the stimulus that provoked it). If your tic is light and annoys you, you could try that. Your subconscious is capable of picking up more than you think, and it is (somewhat) malleable.

I have SAD and this happens to me several times a day. Though it's not so much that it pops into my head, more that my train of thought leads me there by association.

In a lot of ways SAD feels like a form of PTSD where instead of a single extremely traumatic experience, or many extreme experiences(known as complex PTSD), it's a huge amount of slightly traumatic ones. So it's sort of like a flashback.

One of the things I've noticed is that when I'm on SSRIs and they're working(which has never been a long-lived state of affairs, unfortunately), this phenomenon is drastically reduced or even gone altogether.

Are you talking about Seasonal Affective Disorder? Or can you define what SAD is if not?

Sorry, forgot about seasonal affective disorder, which I also have, ironically. But I was referring to social anxiety disorder.

From context my guess is Social Anxiety Disorder.

That makes more sense. Thanks.

I think this is a bit different from a tic though that's an unqualified opinion.

This happens to me as well, but usually I just kind of mutter 'damnit' under my breath or 'ugh'. Maybe shake my head a little.

I also do that from time to time, though less regularly, maybe once a month. But then I also sometimes talk to myself (not excessively, just occasionally when I take a walk or while at home, replaying some conversation or imagining a possible situation). I thought this was rather normal, or at least not too far from normal.

I didn't think it was, but I'm learning here it's at least a lot more common than I imagined!

Holy shit, I thought this only happened to me. Hey fellow weirdo! Glad to know i'm not alone

I too have issues with these kinds of thoughts that very nearly cause a whole-body shudder, followed by a kind of yell just to get it out of my system. It doesn't happen often, but hearing others talk about this gives me hope that I'm not a total weirdo... even though I know I am in many other ways LOL!

I've also wondered if my ADHD somehow factors into it, but that I don't know.

As a someone who recently realised/accepted that I have loads of adhd traits, I can see the connection. I personally think that the fact my mind is never really "calm" means I/we have more opportunities to play over these things when doing other tasks.

I get the impression those without adhd can just concentrate without a mind full of fluff - I can't imagine what that must be like!

This is me to a tee! I either get a neck spasm when my chin gets brought down (also happens spontaneously, but often with a cringe worthy thought from the past), or I'll 'almost' same something out loud while replaying something.

Assumed it wasn't just me who did this but glad to know there are others.

Interesting.

I am wondering if you've tried EMDR after the event happens? So you have the thought that triggers the tic and then you'd focus intensely on the event and do the EMDR stuff. That may reduce the intensity of the past event and reprogram your nervous system to not trigger so intensely on it.

See my response here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=33887467

I had a significant tic, and found profound relief through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I strongly recommend "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life".

Happens at least twice a day to me, sometimes a lot more. My wife finds it bewildering so I’m not sure it’s totally normal, but I know it’s not uncommon either.

EMDR therapy may help with something like that.

EMDR looks mighty hinky to me.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11393607/

"In sum, EMDR appears to be no more effective than other exposure techniques, and evidence suggests that the eye movements integral to the treatment, and to its name, are unnecessary."

These days EMDR is a synecdoche for bilateral stimulation techniques. Eye movements aren't actually integral to EMDR.

That doesn't make it any less bogus.

There's plenty of anecdotal experience saying it's been helpful. I've tried it personally and I found it "too much" which is why I stopped.

That research is likely out of date.

Out of date does not necessarily mean wrong. If you want to challenge this result the burden is on you to cite some more recent work with different results.

You can simply google more recent things dude. You picked an article from 2001. Try 2021 or 2022. Clearly you have an agenda.

But here's a case report showing a reduction in tics after EMDR.

https://ijponline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13052-...

In a single patient. Published in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics, which is not exactly a top-tier journal.

If that's the best you've got, that makes me even more confident that EMDR is bogus.

> Clearly you have an agenda.

Indeed I do. My agenda is to seek the truth, and to debunk bogus scientific claims wherever I encounter them.

There is growing evidence that EMDR works. If you can't find any articles yourself and read the literature well then it is your loss.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.0218...

> Learnt behaviour, copying, or physical tics that once learnt get stuck in the brain?

The article itself makes it clear. There's an obvious reward for these behaviors. This youtuber got exceptionally popular very quickly and was able to turn that into appearances on other shows. The other patients are also noted to have their "symptoms" express themselves during unpleasant tasks, but to be missing during pleasant ones. To the point it gets them out of doing the unpleasant work.

We've built a system that rewards this behavior because we built a system that also makes this behavior profitable. To me, these results shouldn't be a surprise, and I wonder if this "new illness" is really just an emergent lower level expression of something like Munchhausen syndrome; now given a wider and less sophisticated audience to play to.

It sounds like these people simply learned the symptoms of a psychiatric condition and used that knowledge for personal gain.

> patients often reported to be unable to perform unpleasant tasks because of their symptoms

> resulting in release from obligations at school and home

> symptoms temporarily completely disappear while conducting favourite activities

This is a textbook example of secondary gain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_and_secondary_gain

> So, the weird thing is not they pick up someone else's tics but they cannot get rid of them.

In some cases they did get rid of them after the ruse was discovered and no longer served any purpose.

> in some patients, a rapid and complete remission occurred after exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome

It's the mere suggestion that they might have those tics, but the article says:

> Fourth, in some patients, a rapid and complete remission occurred after exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome.

It also mentions other examples of MSI, where symptoms across the group would subside after a couple weeks or months. So yeah, in most cases all it needs is someone to say Stop That! You're imagining things

All behavior is total behavior, so it doesn’t really matter. Article makes the point that this is attention seeking behavior and often used as an excuse to avoid unpleasant tasks. Whether the teens are aware they are choosing the tic, eventually it becomes habitual and they “can’t stop”. Except they can after meeting with a trained phycologist. Get to the root of the behavior and usually the behavior goes away.

Many OCD sufferers will not agree.

I think they were referring to behaviors associated with mass psychogenic illness, which is probably a lot more curable than many OCD cases.

In this case, however, the problem going away after diagnosis was one of the indicators of the psychosis.

> Fourth, in some patients, a rapid and complete remission occurred after exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome.

> First, all patients presented with nearly identical movements and vocalizations that not only resemble Jan Zimmermann’s symptoms, but are in part exactly the same, such as shouting the German words Pommes (English: potatoes), Bombe (English: bomb), Heil Hitler, Du bist häßlich (English: you are ugly) and Fliegende Haie (English: flying sharks) as well as bizarre and complex behaviours such as throwing pens at school and dishes at home, and crushing eggs in the kitchen. > Fourth, in some patients, a rapid and complete remission occurred after exclusion of the diagnosis of Tourette syndrome.

To a first approximation, the kids are 'faking it'. The third point I didn't quote was that symptoms appear when it will preclude then from doing a tedious task, and then disappear when they are doing something they want to do.

Faceworms instead of earworms?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com