A dog learns to sit on command, a person hears and eventually tunes out the hum of a washing machine while reading … The capacity to learn and adapt is central to evolution and, indeed, survival.

The startle response is a sudden, reflex-like response to an unexpected stimulus, such as a loud noise or bright light. It is an unlearned and largely unconscious defense mechanism shared by animals ...

"The central question here is not whether habituation and neural adaptation occur in female responses to male mate choice stimuli (the answer is surely yes); rather it is what effects they may have ...

"Imagine a dog playing in a garden and smelling all of these different flowery smells, and then somewhere in the distance a predator appears, like a fox. The raw input coming into the dog's nose is a ...