Deceased perceptual response to a repeated stimulus is known as?

Appeared in: RUHS, Jaipur, M.Sc Nursing Entrance Exam-2016

Explanation

Habituation is a form of simple learning where an organism decreases or ceases to respond to a stimulus after repeated presentations.
It is an adaptive mechanism that allows an individual to ignore persistent or repetitive stimuli that are not important or threatening.
This process helps in preventing sensory overload by filtering out irrelevant information from the environment.
For example, living near a busy road, one eventually stops noticing the sound of traffic. This is habituation.

Option B: Selective attention is about filtering and focusing on one stimulus out of many, not about a decreased response to a single repeated stimulus.
Option C: Undivided attention refers to the concentration of all mental resources on a single task. It does not involve a change in response due to repetition.
Option D: A hallucination is a false sensory perception without any external stimulus. The question describes a response to a real, repeated stimulus.

Clinical Relevance

Nursing practice connection: This is primarily an exam-oriented knowledge point with limited direct bedside application, so retain Psychological Concepts of Perception and Attention as background academic context rather than a clinical decision trigger.
The most significant clinical application of habituation is understanding and mitigating 'alarm fatigue' in nurses.
Constant exposure to non-critical alarms can lead to habituation, causing nurses to respond more slowly or even miss critical alarms, which can compromise patient safety.
Hospitals implement strategies like tiered alarm systems and customizing alarm parameters to reduce unnecessary alerts and combat the effects of habituation.

How to Approach the Question

First, break down the question stem to identify the key concepts: 'decreased perceptual response' and 'repeated stimulus'.
This is a definition-based recall question. Your goal is to match the definition in the stem to the correct psychological term from the options.
Evaluate each option against the key concepts.
Option A, Habituation, directly matches the definition of a reduced response to a repeated stimulus.
Options B and C relate to attention, which is about focusing cognitive resources, not about a change in response strength due to repetition.
Option D, Hallucination, is a false perception without a stimulus, which is the opposite of what the question describes (a response to a real stimulus).

Concept Tested & Keywords

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E6 Psychology Applied Sreevani 6e Sem1 p. 134-136

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