Visiting a carpentry shop, I came across a sand paper which may be the coarsest sand paper I ever touched. It felt like the grains are as course as the grains of the sand. After two minutes, I tried rubbing my fingers again but the sand paper seems to become fewer courses just like rubbing my fingers to a sugar in a cup. After another two minutes, I tried rubbing again my fingers to the sand paper and this time, it was not as coarse as the sugar anymore. The grains seemed to become finer just like the grains of a coffee. Thinking of the coffee, I went to the kitchen and tried make myself a cup of coffee. I just placed sugar in my cup of water when I realized that there is no coffee at all. So I decided to drink the cup with sugar in it. I started drinking and whew, I should have placed too much sugar because it was so sweet and I had a hard time swallowing it so it remained in my mouth for around 15 seconds. I was surprised that the sweetness became less while it remained on my mouth. After drinking all that was left on the cup, I was still thirsty so I had a glass of plain water, only to find out that the water seems to taste very different and not like its usual taste. It’s just like that the water had no taste at all. After drinking the water, a saw my little sister playing with three bowls of water, one labeled hot, cold and lukewarm. So I started placing my left hand in the hot water and my right in the cold water. At first, both hand almost repulses to the temperature they are in but after a few second, they seems acclimatized to the temperature. After 3 minutes, I removed both hand and dipped them in the lukewarm water. It was like normal for the hand submerged in hot water but for the hand submerged in cold water, it felt like it was exposed to a very different temperature.
The reasons for these acclimatization to the taste, texture and feel is sensory adaptation. Sensory adaptation is an adjustment in sensory capacity after a prolonged exposure to strong stimuli. It occurs when one person becomes accustomed to particular stimuli. The brain mentally turns down the volume of the stimulation it is experiencing. (Tim, 2012)
For example in the sandpaper became finer, the water with sugar became less sweet and the hands became accustomed to the hot and cold water because there is a decreases sensitivity that occurred as a result of the repeated exposure to a stimulus. In this case, the stimulus was the sandpaper, the sweetened water and the hot and cold water. The decline in the sensitivity to the stimuli is because of the inability of the of the sensory nerve receptors to send messages to the brain indefinitely. The constant stimulation in these situations was not effective in producing a sustained reaction because the receptor cells were more responsive to changes in the stimulation. Furthermore, the judgments or the reactions are also affected by the situation you are in. For example, in the case of the hot to lukewarm water, there is no big difference in the perception felt because the preceding sensory experience was almost the same.
In terms of evolutionary perspective, adaptation is very important since we live in an ever changing world. Only those who are able to adapt to the changing environment will be able to survive. It is key the ongoing evolution of life on earth.
Hersh, Thomas R. (2012). The Law of Psychological Adaptation. Retrieved on March 28, 2012 at http://www.psychological-observations.com/psychological-laws/law-of-adaptation
Tim (2012). Sensory Adaptation. Retrieved on March 28, 2012 at http://www.laymanpsych.com/sensory-adaptation/
