What is triple response?

Martial Arts: How do I replace a stimuli-response with a new one and what is the science behind the mechanisms of learning new stimuli-responses?

• I would like to study the following related topics and how they relate to each other: 1) How Learning happens, and what are its stages. 2) How a stimuli-response happens, more accurately how we get a response installed for a stimuli. 3) How to replace existing response(s) to a stimuli. 4) How fear, stress and anger play a role in changing people's behaviors. 5) What is behavioral modification and how it works. My purpose is to understand how my weapons-based martial art discipline is changing my brain, mindset and behavior. Also, how it's changing my stimuli-response chain to the sight of and reactions to weapons. I am looking for Science books/articles/resources.

• Answer:

  Not a link to an article, but figure I'd get the ball rolling anyway.   I'm also not sure if you're asking what you can do to replace/develop stimuli-responses or if you're trying to understand the brain processes - I assume it's the latter.   For question 1, learning happens in 4 stages (in this particular paradigm at least).  You start with unconscious incompetence, then go to conscious incompetence, then conscious competence, then unconscious competence.    In unconscious incompetence, you don't know how to do something and are unaware of it.   In conscious incompetence, you are now aware that you don't know how to do that particular something.   In conscious competence, you have now learned how to do it but have to think about it.  For example, someone who has been studying how to punch for a year may know how to do it, but they still have to think about it.   In unconscious competence, you no longer think about it; it's now second nature.    For questions 2 and 3, you develop a new stimuli-response by training neural pathways over and over.  So in the punching example, your instinct may have been to punch in a certain way, and your teacher has shown you a different way to punch.  In the beginning your brain will resort to the neural pathways that have been ingrained for years.  As you drill, you no longer develop the old neural pathways, and instead develop the new neural pathways.  The same applies to retraining your stimuli-response.   On that note, this is why I subscribe to a school of thought that believes in drills rather than sparring.  Drills teach you muscle memory.  Sparring does not.    Stress responses negatively impact your ability to operate.  I have heard (and wish I could cite a source) that above a heart rate of 115 bpm, you lose fine motor skills; above 145 bpm, you lose complex motor skills, including your ability to do complicated defensive maneuvers.  At 150 bpm you have a *brief* increase in gross motor skills, strength, and speed.  These effects (from adrenaline) are what make the well-known fight or flight response.   On the cognitive side, at 145 bpm you begin to lose logical thought.  Again, this is why I train drills and not sparring.  I want to rely on those neural pathways, not thinking about how I should fight.    The above information on stress responses, by the way, is from a friend of mine who is retired Navy and retired corrections officer.  He has been training in the martial arts for 30-some years.   I'm open to corrections if anyone has suggestions.