Habituation and Sensitization

Short-term habituation

- Child banging on drum - You will quickly decrease your responses to this stimulus. - However, you will also quickly recover in the absence of this stimulus and act again very similarly

Coolidge Effect

- Enhanced sexual arousal when presented with new sexual partner as opposed to sexual partner to whom it has habituated

Opponent-Process Theory of Emotion

- Entirely based on homeostasis - Emotional event elicits 2 competing processes 1) A-process (primary process): Directly elicited by event 2) B-process (opponent process): Serves to counteract the A-process - Ex: Dog shocked - A-process: Dog's heart rate shoots up when shocked -B-process: Compensatory reflex that lowers the dog's heart rate

Dishabituation

- Habituated response reappears when a seemingly-novel stimulus appears - Habituate to gunshots, see a very attractive girl, become startled again by the gunshots.

Habituation & Sensitization

- Habituation: Decrease in strength of an elicited behavior following repeated presentations of the eliciting stimulus. - Usually more stimulus specific - Low-intensity stimulus Sensitization: Increase in strength of an elicited behavior following repeated presentations of the eliciting stimulus. - Often generalizes to other stimuli. - High-intensity stimulus - Both disappear (strength of behavior returns to normal) when stimulus is not presented for a period of time

Long-term habituation

- Move into an apartment where you can hear a loud train every morning - Over time your reaction would decrease - Additionally, it would take you weeks or even months for your reaction level to return to what it was the first time

Revictimization

- People who tend to be in abusive relationships can get hooked on the powerful feelings of pleasure in the b-process phase after the abuse in the a-process phase.

Characteristics of A & B processes

1) A-process closely associates with presence of emotional event (heart immediately increases and decreases with/without shock. You become immediately happy or disappointed about lottery results) 2) B-Process is slow to both increase and decrease 3) B-Process becomes stronger and lasts longer with repeated presentations of emotional event