Question

How has sensory adaptation been both advantageous and disadvantageous in our own life?

Answer 1

Sensory adaptation is the diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus and this is advantageous as it imparts us to focus on informative change in the environment without being distracted by the constant uninformative background stimulation. Thus we don’t constantly keep thinking about our clothes although we feel them.

Sensory adaptation has some disadvantages as it occurs for all the five senses. If we are driving on a highway and our auditory receptors get adapted we may not hear the noise of a vehicle that is coming close to us.