Auditory Habituation

Modified: 2020-03-18

Habituation consists of not responding to a stimulus. Habituation occurs most easily to stimuli of low to moderate intensity, and to repetitive stimuli, for example, a clock in a room. Its ticking will no longer be noticed after one spends some time in the room.

Having guests in your house overnight is a good way to discover stimuli that you have become habituated to. Once, some friends asked us at breakfast how we managed to sleep with all the cows across the street mooing all night. Our answer was, "What cows?". We had habituated to that particular stimulus.

Similarly, people who live near railroad tracks also habituate to the nightly sound of passing trains. But their guests will likely wake up when the 4:02 am freight train rumbles by.

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