Does Habituation Occur for the Stimulus or the Outcome of the Stimulus-Elicited Mental Operation?
Angelina Leopardo, Bella Benzaken
Department of Psychology
Faculty Supervisor: Ezequiel Morsella
Habituation is the gradual weakening of a response from the repeated exposure to a given stimulus. For example, soon after entering the cold water of a pool, one becomes accustomed to the temperature. Elsabbagh et al. (2023) revealed that high-order cognitions, such as mental arithmetic, too, can habituate. In that study, the same arithmetic problem (e.g., 2+3) was presented repeatedly (ten times). Participants were instructed not to add the numbers. Involuntary adding occurred on the first presentations, but was less likely to occur for the later presentations, a case of habituation. It remains unknown whether the habituation was of the stimulus (e.g., 2+3) or of the sum (e.g., 5). The data from our variation of the task by Elsabbagh et al. (2023) will allow us to answer this important question, which has implications for our understanding of habituation, involuntary processes and the role of such mechanisms in psychopathology (e.g., obsessions).