What is the term for the ability to stop reacting to meaningless stimuli over time?

The ability to stop reacting to meaningless stimuli over time is known as habituation. This process involves a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure, indicating that the organism has learned to ignore that stimulus because it does not have any significant consequence. For example, if a dog hears a noise that initially causes them to react with fear or curiosity, over time, if that noise consistently does not lead to any adverse effects, the dog may gradually become indifferent to it.

In contrast to habituation, desensitization involves gradually exposing a subject to a stimulus at a low intensity and slowly increasing the intensity to help reduce a negative reaction. Adaptation refers more broadly to the physiological or behavioral changes that occur in response to a new environment, and a conditioned response is learned through classical or operant conditioning, where a neutral stimulus triggers a reaction due to its association with an unconditioned stimulus. Habituation specifically focuses on the diminishing response to a repeated, neutral stimulus, making it the most appropriate term in this context.