Questions tagged [habituation]

For questions regarding the process through which routines of behaviors can become automatic or the after-effects of when a behavior has become automatic.

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Why do people have the tendency to pick their nose while driving?

It seems that whenever I am driving I've always got to pick my nose. I've also noted that other people do this on a daily basis as well. Why do people have the tendency to pick their nose while ...
50 votes
1 answer
4k views

Does caffeine improve performance for habituated consumers?

I've seen a fair few studies over the while that suggest caffeine increases arousal in the short term and that for some tasks, this will also increase performance (there's a few citations here). ...
5 votes
0 answers
178 views

Neuroplasticity and Habit Formation

I am currently reading the book The Brain that Changes Itself and I ran across a passage that explains how habits "take over a bit of the brain map." By this, I thought it meant that each ...
2 votes
1 answer
156 views

How to get out of the habit of eating junk food?

What causes habitual eating of junk food? How can one get out of the habit of eating junk food?
2 votes
1 answer
111 views

Are food rewards a good long term learning strategy?

This could be a question for parenting SE, but I am looking to understand the mechanism, so I am looking for a core answer from a psychological perspective; without all of the cultural noise that ...
1 vote
0 answers
40 views

Upper Bounds on Rat Maze Complexity

Suppose you make a rat run through a maze to find it's food. Every day, you put the rat into the same maze. The first few times this rat has to run the maze, it will probably take a little while to ...
4 votes
0 answers
399 views

Eyewitness testimony study from Power of Habit

In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg refers to some study from the University of Western Ontario: STEP THREE: ISOLATE THE CUE About a decade ago, a psychologist at the University of Western ...
5 votes
1 answer
119 views

Is habituation responsible for inaccurate airport security screenings?

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has "red teams" who try to sneak dangerous items through airport security. The security personnel often fail up to 95% of these tests. Is this high ...
0 votes
1 answer
96 views

How does timing of pleasure / dopamine / reward influence the formation of positive association? [closed]

Suppose the following idealized experiment: Setup: A pill/medication which simply induces pleasure. Perhaps something like a perfect dopamine antagonist with no side-effects. Call it P A task which ...
2 votes
0 answers
118 views

Extinction Burst in Humans

I've recently been exposed to the term extinction burst and was wondering how it applies to adult humans and habit modification and behavior management. All the research I've found focuses on ...
3 votes
1 answer
109 views

Can habits be implemented by playing mental scenarios or playing things in your head?

A significant amount of people say that you need to do things over and over again to implement a habit into your subconscious mind where you no longer have to think to do it. If, let's say, I want to ...
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Why does regular repetition become a habit?

Humans have the tendency to develop habits. Habits of an individual can be different, same, or unique. Some have a habit of talking too much (chatty), drawing a box around the answer of mathematical ...
5 votes
2 answers
40k views

Why does the the sight of gore causes nausea, vomiting and/or fainting?

Why is it that upon seeing anything the involves gore, e.g.: surgical cutting excessive blood blood and pain causes nausea, vomiting or fainting? And why does watching it repeatedly take away that ...
11 votes
1 answer
542 views

Why do we become bored of stimuli after multiple exposures to it?

Why do we become bored of songs, films, stories, jokes, food after being exposed to them or experiencing them multiple times? Why is it when our cortex becomes adequate at predicting the outcomes of ...
3 votes
1 answer
538 views

Why does it seems in similar cases sometimes classic conditioning happens and in others habituation?

I'm slightly confused and was hoping you guys could correct me. In classic conditioning as with Pavlov's dogs if we ring a bell just before a dog is given food, the bell will give the same response ...
18 votes
1 answer
3k views

Do people wake up faster with inconsistent alarm sounds?

Many people have one alarm clock sound that wakes them up every morning. Is having this consistent sound the optimal way to wake someone up? Or can you startle someone faster by changing to a ...