01:830:101 Lecture 6: Responding to Our Environment

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:101
• Professor: Sean Stevens

Document Summary

Fast, simple, inevitable, involuntary, responses to stimuli. Triggered by a source of noise, taste, vision, etc, and your can"t inhibit them. Largely carried out by the brain and spinal cord, and areas in the brain stem. Inborn patterns of behavior elicited by environmental stimuli. One individual yawns, another in the same area yawns as well. Early psychology: what differentiated animals from humans was that animals had a lot more reflexes and instincts than animals. Humans can kind of stop their instincts from occuring. Habituation: an exposure to a stimulus that you get used to over time. Sleeping with a watch - you will get used to after a while if it just sits in place, the brain decides to ignore it after a while because it knows what it is. The more you drink it, the more you get used to its effects. Sensitization: the more you are exposed to a stimulus, the harder it is to ignore it.