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A general accommodation to unchanging environmental conditions
Answer for the clue "A general accommodation to unchanging environmental conditions ", 11 letters:
habituation
Word definitions for habituation in dictionaries
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming (especially alcohol or narcotic drugs) [syn: addiction , dependence , dependency ] a general accommodation to unchanging environmental conditions ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. 1 The act of habituate, or accustoming; the state of being habituated. 2 (cx psychology English) The process of becoming accustomed to an internal or external stimulus, such as a noxious smell or loud noise.
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
Habituation is a form of learning in which an organism decreases or ceases to respond to a stimulus after repeated presentations. Essentially, the organism learns to stop responding to a stimulus which is no longer biologically relevant. For example, organisms ...
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mid-15c., from Medieval Latin habituationem (nominative habituatio ), noun of action from past participle stem of habituare "to inhabit, dwell" (see habituate (v.)).
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Habituation \Ha*bit`u*a"tion\ (h[.a]*b[i^]t"[-u]*[=a]"sh[u^]n), n. [Cf. F. habituation.] The act of habituating, or accustoming; the state of being habituated.
Usage examples of habituation.
By the mid-1970s, it was clear that neither sensory inputs nor motor outputs had properties which corresponded to the behavioural habituation, as neither showed such decrements in electrical response.
If habituation occurs by reduction of the postsynaptic response at a single synapse, it could logically be a consequence of either pre- or postsynaptic processes, or of course a combination of both.
By the mid-1970s, they had shown that during habituation in the isolated ganglion there was a steady decrease in the amount of serotonin released from the sensory presynaptic terminal, without there being any change in the responsiveness of the postsynaptic serotonin receptors.
But it was fading, unarrestable, going back to that place where wonder hides out from habituation.
Her habituation to the Rackham house and the tidy streets of Notting Hill has made her lily-livered: now her breath catches, her eyes water, from being forced to take in the overbearing stench of perfume and horse dung, freshly-baked cakes and old meat, burnt mutton-fat and chocolate, roast chestnuts and dog piss.
Habituation and disHabituation, which thus fulfill the criteria for the definitions of learning given at the beginning of Chapter 6, can be regarded as very basic and simple forms of short-term memory, adaptive mechanisms which economize on unnecessary responses and hence help to avoid fatigue.
Repetition of the same stimulus following a sequence of habituation and dishabituation produces a more rapid habituation on successive occasions.
Kupfermann, I, Castellucci, V, Pinsker, H, and Kandel, E R Neuronal correlates of habituation and dishabituation of the gill-withdrawal reflex in Aplysia.
Their givenness and everydayness -- rather than any cycle of shock and habituation -- is the trademark of the new, postmodern urbanism.
Although as long ago as the early 1970s it had been shown that protein synthesis inhibitors were without effect on habituation and sensitization, it was not until the mid-1980s that Kandel turned his attention to the longer-term cellular processes.
It followed that the cells responsible for the habituation must lie centrally, within the sensory-motor interconnections in the abdominal ganglion.
Granted that the circuitry for the reflex was known, the researchers could then ask the question: when habituation occurs, which part of the circuitry is involved?
If habituation occurs by reduction of the postsynaptic response at a single synapse, it could logically be a consequence of either pre- or postsynaptic processes, or of course a combination of both.
The capacity to show habituation, he observed, occurs relatively early on in the development of the baby Aplysia, while sensitization does not appear until a relatively late stage.
From this and other types of experiment, it is beyond dispute that, even by the most rigid of the criteria used by mammalian psychologists, Drosophila show not merely habituation and sensitization but classical and operant conditioning based on visual, olfactory and even touch cues.