Habituation

Habituation: A decrease in strength or occurrence of a behavior after repeated exposure to a stimulus that produces that behavior. (Easier for less arousing events)

• Sound (e.g. tuning out, not noticing construction sounds)
• Smell (e.g. not noticing the perfume smell)
• Sight (e.g. tuning out the nose in front of the eye)
• Taste (e.g. habituate to the hot sauce)
• Touch (e.g. tuning out feeling of clothes)

Measuring Habituation

Acoustic Startle Reflex: Defensive response (jumping or freezing) to a startling stimulus (noise) (e.g. for rats, measure magnitude of startle response)

Orienting Response: An organism’s innate reaction to a novel stimulus (e.g. for babies, show them something repeatedly and measure the time they stare at it)

Not permanent because of dishabituation.

What can Affect Habituation?

Amount: Massed (faster to learn, short-term effect) vs spaced (slower to learn, long-term effect) (e.g. once per day vs. every 3 seconds)

Type: Same stimulus faster than different stimulus, but different stimulus is still ok (generalization) (e.g. construction with same sounds vs. different sounds)

Time: Spontaneous recovery occurs when time passed without stimulus present

Strength: Stronger stimulus are harder to habituate to

Change of stimulus: dishabituation

Neuroscience of Habituation

Carry experiments on Aplysia because they’re simpler than humans (e.g. touching the siphon → gill contraction response habituates)

• Repeated stimulation of Siphon sensory neuron results in reduced release of glutamate onto motor neuron (long-term depression)