It's more just putting them in a situation during a match, remembering how they reacted, so that you can punish it when the situation arises again.
There's a lot more to it, but essentially it's mind games used to get your opponent to fall into a trap that you've set.
A simple example using Jin.
If you spam throws every time you get in with Jin, you're conditioning your opponent to be ready to tech throws.
Hopefully you'll scare them enough that they'll start trying to tech throws before they're really there, etc.
So when you run up and 6B, you've conditioned them to tech throws, and you get CH on their whiffed throw attempt.
They wouldn't have whiffed a throw tech, had you not been so throw happy earlier. But you mindfucked themmmmm. :]
That's the most basic example I can think of.
EDIT- Ahh, good ninja STen. lol.