Concept of habituation, need some clarification?

Question

I’ve read up on habituation and a few examples; however I still have a few questions.

#1: The person has moved into a house on a busy street. Initially, the person is distracted every time a loud car drives by. After living in the house for a while, the person is no longer distracted by the street noise. The person has become habituated.

#2: You put a stuffed owl into a cage with song birds. Initially, the song birds react to it as if it were a real predator. Soon, the birds react less, showing habituation as they become used to the stuffed owl. However, if another stuffed owl is introduced (or the same one is removed and re-introduced) the birds react to it as though it were a predator.

MY QUESTION: Although both are examples of habituation, why is that the songbirds still react to the stuffed owl as though it were a predator; even though it has been introduced once before? Meanwhile, the humans are not distracted every a new car drives by?

Do you get what I’m trying to ask? Sorry if it’s hard to understand.

Answer 1

No it wasn't hard to understand at all.

Basically humans and animals react much more differently to various situations, for instance birds fly away when a human approaches them, yet does a human run away when another human/ or even a bird approaches them (well sometimes if the human has a strange fear of birds or people hehe) but the majority of people don't.

So after years of birds raising birds they pass on natural survival skills and so since an owl is seen as a predator they would react as if it were a predator, but then adjust to its lack of motion/ even scent of their natural known predator.

So my Answer: It could be many reasons why they would react again, some scientists feel as though the birds are to week minded to have remembered the first (it depends on the amount of time that has passed between the removal of the first owl and the introduction of the other).  Another factor could be if a new scent was presented on the first after all do you know if this experiment had a control factor?  Or finally it could be that all birds just react this way no matter what, after all it seems that they are not very loving of change so a change in a environment they once though was secure could also provoke panic.

--hope this helped

Answer 2

2. -If another stuffed owl is introduced (or the same one removed and re-introduced), the birds react to it as though it were a predator, showing that it is only a very specific stimulus that is habituated to (namely, one particular unmoving owl in one place).

It all depends on the specificity of the stimulus.