Habituation

Habituation

In psychology, habituation is the psychological process in humans and animals in which there is a decrease in behavioral response variation to a stimulus after repeated exposure to that stimulus over a duration of time.

Background

Habituation is very similar to acclimation, in that repetition of certain behaviors that are rewarding to a life form will likely be continued, or ingrained in a habitual manner. For example, for all life forms on Earth, obtaining life-sustaining matter that exists externally from those beings, such as food, water and shelter, is an habituated behavior. The learning underlying habituation is a fundamental or basic process of biological systems and does not require conscious motivation or awareness to occur. Indeed, without habituation we would be unable to distinguish meaningful information from the background, unchanging information. Habituation has been shown in essentially every species of animal, including the large protozoan "Stentor coeruleus". Wood, D. C. (1988). Habituation in "Stentor" produced by mechanoreceptor channel modification. Journal of Neuroscience, 2254 (8).]

Psychological significance in humans

Habituation need not be conscious - for example, a short time after a human dresses in clothing, the stimulus clothing creates disappears from our nervous systems and we become unaware of it. In this way, habituation is used to ignore any continual stimulus, presumably because changes in stimulus level are normally far more important than absolute levels of stimulation. This sort of habituation can occur through neural adaptation in sensory nerves themselves and through negative feedback from the brain to peripheral sensory organs.

Habituation is frequently used in testing psychological phenomena. Both adults and infants gaze lesser at a particular visual stimulus the longer it is presented. The amount of time spent looking at a new stimulus after habituation to the initial stimulus indicates the effective similarity of the two stimuli. It is also used to discover the resolution of perceptual systems. For instance, by habituating someone to one stimulus, and then observing responses to similar ones, one can detect the smallest degree of difference that is detectable.

Dishabituation is when a second stimulus is presented in unison with a primary stimulus, and may briefly increase habituated response toward the primary stimulus until an organism distinguishes, or discriminates the differences between two different stimuli. Dishabituation has been demonstrated as being inherently different than psychological sensitization.

ee also

*Banner blindness
*Habit
*Neural adaptation

References

External links

*Usabilityfirst.com. [http://www.usabilityfirst.com/glossary/main.cgi?function=display_term&term_id=913 "Definition of Habituation"] . Retrieved August 29, 2008.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Habituation — (v. lat.: habituari: etwas an sich haben bzw. habitus: Aussehen, Haltung ; Adjektiv habituell: zur Gewohnheit geworden ) bezeichnet eine einfache (und beim Menschen in der Regel nicht bewusste) Form des Lernens. Habituation setzt ein, wenn ein… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • habituation — [ abitɥasjɔ̃ ] n. f. • v. 1960; « formation d une habitude » XVIe; de habituer 1 ♦ Didact. Fait de s habituer (à qqch.). Habituation aux bruits d aéroport. 2 ♦ (1967; d apr. l angl.) Psychol. Disparition progressive de réponse à un stimulus… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Habituation — Ha*bit u*a tion (h[.a]*b[i^]t [ u]*[=a] sh[u^]n), n. [Cf. F. habituation.] The act of habituating, or accustoming; the state of being habituated. [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • Habituation — Habituation, die Stelle eines Pfarrgehülfen …   Pierer's Universal-Lexikon

  • habituation — I noun acclimation, acclimatization, accustoming, adaptation, adjustment, conditioning, confirmed habit, customariness, familiarization, inurement, inveteracy, inveterate habit, inveterateness II index behavior, custom, practice (custom) …   Law dictionary

  • Habituation — ⇒ Gewöhnung …   Deutsch wörterbuch der biologie

  • habituation — (n.) mid 15c., from M.L. habituationem, noun of action from habituare (see HABITUATE (Cf. habituate) (v.)) …   Etymology dictionary

  • habituation — Habituation, Assuetudo, Consuetudo …   Thresor de la langue françoyse

  • Habituation — En psychologie, l habituation constitue une forme d apprentissage. Elle consiste en la diminution graduelle (et relativement prolongée) de l intensité ou de la fréquence d apparition d une réponse suite à la présentation répétée ou prolongée du… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Habituation — Ha|bi|tu|a|ti|on 〈f. 20; Psych.〉 1. Gewöhnung 2. Abnahme von Reaktionen auf häufig wiederkehrende Reize [<engl. habituation „Gewöhnung“] * * * Ha|bi|tu|a|ti|on, die; , en [engl. habituation]: a) (Psychol.) Gewöhnung; b) (bildungsspr.)… …   Universal-Lexikon

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”