Stimulus specificity in the habituation of the startle response in the rat

A series of experiments evaluated whether the habituation of the startle response of the rat to tactile and auditory cues is stimulus specific. Experiment 1 showed stimulus specificity of a short-term habituation effect, whereby the startle to the second of a pair of stimuli was significantly less when the initial stimulus involved the same rather than the different modality. Experiments 2 and 3 focused on the more persistent decrement in startle that is a result of repeated stimulation, and demonstrated that such long-term habituation to the tactile and auditory stimuli contained a stimulus specific component in addition to a generalized component. The generalized habituation observed between the tactile and auditory stimuli in the three experiments may be due to an auditory accompaniment of the tactile stimulus employed. Discussion emphasized the utility of investigating habituation in a preparation with robust specificity.