Edexcel unit 5
What is the difference between adaptation and habituation?
Thx in advance
Habituation is an extremely simple form of learning, in which an animal, after a period of exposure to a stimulus, stops responding. The most interesting thing about habituation is that it can occur at different levels in the nervous system. Sensory systems may stop, after a while, sending signals to the brain in response to a continuously present or often-repeated stimulus (Cohen et al. 1997). Lack of continued response to strong odors is a common example of sensory habitation. Habituation to complex stimuli may occur at the level of the brain; the stimulus is still perceived, but the animal has simply "decided" to no longer pay attention (Rose and Rankin 2001).Example:- "You are sitting quietly, reading a book. Suddenly, a tap on the window startles you. Your heart rate rises momentarily and you glance at the window to see if someone is there. But you see that the wind has strengthened and the branch of a tree has touched the glass. As your interest returns to the book, repeated taps of the branch on the window evoke progressively smaller reactions, until they hardly intrude into your reading at all."
Excel-erated Learning, page 38:"I sometimes hear habituation and adaptation used interchangeably. Adaptation is quite different because it does not involve learning.
Adaptation refers to the physical process of tiring. Perceiving a stimulus requires that the animal uses its senses. The sensory neurons can tire and when they do, they actually stop working."
Example -
Overworked police dogs losing sense of smell
Madrid's police dogs need time off after train bombing
MADRID - Madrid’s police dogs and their trainers have been so overworked since
the March 11 Madrid train bombings that the dogs are losing their
ability to detect bombs, a police union official said.
