RP18

• Investigate habituation to a stimulus

  1. Dampen cotton wool bud in distilled water

  2. Touch snail between eye buds with cotton wool bud

  3. Time length of time for snail to emerge fully from shell

  4. Repeat for 10 touches
• Habituation


  The decreasing of an innate response over time as the stimulus is repeated and learned to be benign
• Innate response


  Snail retracting into shell when touched between eye buds
• Habituation is learned as the stimulus is repeated and is evolutionarily advantageous not to use resources on responding to a benign stimulus
• As number of touches increases


  Time taken for snail to re-emerge decreases
• Reason for habituation


  • Calcium channels in presynaptic membrane become less responsive to stimuli over time, so less neurotransmitter is released into synaptic cleft
• It is important to treat the snails ethically during the experiment and to re-release them afterwards