Week 3 - Habituation and Other Forms of Stimulus Learning

    Hello, welcome back to my blog! Habituation and other forms of stimulus learning was the topic covered during week 3 on class. I found this topic particularly interesting as it made me realize certain patterns or events a did not notice before, such as the situation when an annoying noise "disappears" once we get used to it.

First, we started with the concepts of orienting response and habituation. 

(Resourse obtained from: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/468791?language=spanish)

    Orienting response: The orienting response is a natural reflexive reaction to novel or significant stimuli in the environment. When presented with something new or unexpected, an organism will typically orient itself towards the stimulus, directing its attention towards it. This response serves the purpose of gathering information about the stimulus and assessing whether it poses a threat or is of potential interest. It's an adaptive mechanism that helps organisms detect and respond to changes in their surroundings.

    Habituation: Habituation is a form of learning characterized by a decrease in responsiveness to a repeated or continuous stimulus. Essentially, it's the process by which an organism becomes accustomed to a stimulus and gradually reduces or stops responding to it.

    Also, we discussed about dishabituation that is the process by which a previously habituated response to a stimulus is restored or heightened following the introduction of a new or changed stimulus. In other words, dishabituation occurs when a habituated response to a stimulus is temporarily reversed due to the presentation of a novel or significant stimulus.

    “Fatigue Model” and “Neurobiological Models” were also discussed with the dishabituation as an explanation of habituation and basically fatigue model talked about the understanding the physiological and psychological processes involved in fatigue, particularly as it relates to performance decrements, while the neurobiological models aim to explain behavior, cognition, and psychological phenomena in terms of underlying neural mechanisms and processes.

Perceptual learning: 

    Perceptual learning refers to the process through which an individual improves their ability to perceive and discriminate between stimuli in the environment through experience and practice. It involves the enhancement of perceptual skills, such as recognizing patterns, distinguishing between different objects or features, and detecting subtle differences in sensory information.

Question for classmates: 

    How does habituation contribute to our understanding of attention and memory processes? Can you think of examples from your own experiences where habituation has influenced your attention or memory for certain stimuli, and how did you adapt to these changes?

Thank you for reading, hope you have an amazing day! 

References: 

    Terry, W. S. (1999). Learning and Memory: principles, processes, and procedures (5th ed.).

    Cambridge Dictionary. (2024). https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/memory