An infant presented with the same visual stimulus over and over again will eventually lose interest in it, not responding with the same degree of curiosity as he did initially. This gradual drop-off in responding has been called __________.
A) the learning curve
B) the law of effect
C) habituation
D) stimulus generalization

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This gradual drop-off in responding to a repeated stimulus is known as habituation. It is a normal process that allows infants (and other organisms) to conserve their attention and energy for new or potentially important stimuli. Option A (learning curve) refers to the pattern of an individual’s learning progress over time, option B (law of effect) refers to the idea that behavior that is followed by positive consequences is more likely to be repeated, and option D (stimulus generalization) is the tendency to respond to similar stimuli in the same way as the original stimulus. None of these options accurately describe the phenomenon in question.

An Infant Presented with the Same Visual Stimulus Over and Over