Many stimuli, when presented to an animal for the first time, will elicit a response. Following repeated presentations of such stimuli, responding often declines. This decline in responding is termed HABITUATION. For example, a loud noise will,...

Habituation The reduction in response level that occurs when an infant has become accustomed to a particular stimulus. Habituation, the reduction in response to a stimulus over time, has been the subject of research on infant perception. Researchers...

A habit is defined as a way of behaving that is repeated so often it no longer involves conscious thought. A habit might be a person brushing her teeth every night before bed, or walking the dog every morning before school or work. These habits...

When a ringing bell is presented to a cat, it may evoke a turning of the head toward the sound source. If that same stimulus is repeated over and over again, the probability and magnitude of this orienting response decrease. This phenomenon is called...

In psychology, habituation is an example of non-associative learning in which there is a progressive diminution of behavioral response probability with repetition of a stimulus. It is another form of integration. An animal first responds to a stimulus,...

Enduring Creation: Art, Pain, and Fortitude. By Nigel Spivey. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. Pp. 272. $39.95 (hb). Imagine yourself at the entrance to a gallery you have never encountered before, filled with works of art both familiar and unfamiliar. There...

William Raspberry's column {"Crime and the 6 Percent Solution," op-ed, March 14} on violent repeat criminal offenders takes issue with statistics and the number of crimes habitual offenders are responsible for across this nation. He does not, however, seem to take issue with the...

A Cape Cod man who claimed he was homophobic, racist and a habitual liar to avoid jury duty earned an angry rebuke from a judge on Monday, who referred the case to prosecutors for possible charges."In 32 years of service in courtrooms, as a prosecutor,...

Park rangers in Congo found a dead mountain gorilla after a raid on a suspected ring of gorilla traffickers in which authorities detained two people, conservationists said Tuesday.The dead female infant was found near east Congo's Virunga National Park, where Congolese rebels and army troops...