Habituation
From Wikinfo
Habituation is an example of associative learning in which there is a progressive diminution of behavioural response probability with repetition of a stimulus. It is another form of integration. An animal first responds to a sensory stimulus, but if it is neither rewarding or harmful the animal learns to suppress its response through repeated encounters. This learned suppression of response is habituation.
This learning is a fundamental or basic process of biological systems and does not require conscious motivation or awareness for this effect to occur. In effect, habituation is a learned immune response to the environment.
Habituation is stimulus specific. It does not cause a general decline in responsiveness. It functions like an average weighted history wavelet interference filter reducing the responsiveness of the organism to a particular stimulus. Frequently one can see opponent processes after the stimulus is removed.
Habituation is connected to associational reciprocal inhibition phenomenon, opponent process, motion after effect, color constancy, size constancy, and negative image after effect.
Habituation in terms of Wildlife management refers to wild animals getting used to a novel environment such as an urban area, for example mule deer and puma have become habituated to the urban-wildland interface near Boulder, Colorado where in some instances they have begun to prey on humans and dogs.
References
- Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Habituation" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habituation, used under the GNU Free Documentation License
