Stimulus (psychology) in the context of "Thinking"

In their most common sense, thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that occur independently of direct sensory stimulation. Core forms include judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. Other processes, such as entertaining an idea, memory, or imagination, are also frequently considered types of thought. Unlike perception, these activities can occur without immediate input from the sensory organs. In a broader sense, any mental event—including perception and unconscious processes—may be described as a form of thought. The term can also denote not the process itself, but the resulting mental states or systems of ideas.

A variety of theories attempt to explain the nature of thinking. Platonism holds that thought involves discerning eternal forms and their interrelations, distinguishing these pure entities from their imperfect sensory imitations. Aristotelianism interprets thinking as instantiating the universal essence of an object within the mind, derived from sense experience rather than a changeless realm. Conceptualism, closely related to Aristotelianism, identifies thinking with the mental evocation of concepts. Inner speech theories suggest that thought takes the form of silent verbal expression, sometimes in a natural language and sometimes in a specialized "mental language," or Mentalese, as proposed by the language of thought hypothesis. Associationism views thought as the succession of ideas governed by laws of association, while behaviorism reduces thinking to behavioral dispositions that generate intelligent actions in response to stimuli. More recently, computationalism compares thought to information processing, storage, and transmission in computers.

Habituation is a form of non-associative learning in which an organism’s non-reinforced response to an inconsequential stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus. For example, organisms may habituate to repeated sudden loud noises when they learn that these have no consequences.

Habituation can occur in responses that habituate include those that involve an entire organism or specific biological component systems of an organism. The broad ubiquity of habituation across all forms of life has led to it being called "the simplest, most universal form of learning...as fundamental a characteristic of life as DNA." Functionally, habituation is thought to free up cognitive resources for other stimuli that are associated with biologically important events by diminishing the response to inconsequential stimuli.

Laughter is a typically pleasant physical reaction and emotion consisting usually of rhythmical, usually audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter can rise from such activities as being tickled, or from humorous stories, imagery, videos or thoughts. Most commonly, it is considered an auditory expression of a number of positive emotional states, such as joy, mirth, happiness or relief. On some occasions, however, it may be caused by contrary emotional states such as embarrassment, surprise, or confusion such as nervous laughter or courtesy laugh. Age, gender, education, language and culture are all indicators as to whether a person will experience laughter in a given situation. Other than humans, some other species of primate (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) show laughter-like vocalizations in response to physical contact such as wrestling, play chasing or tickling.

Laughter is a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group—it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seen as contagious and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback.

In psychology and cognitive neuroscience, pattern recognition is a cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus with information retrieved from memory.

Pattern recognition occurs when information from the environment is received and entered into short-term memory, causing automatic activation of a specific content of long-term memory. An example of this is learning the alphabet in order. When a carer repeats "A, B, C" multiple times to a child, the child, using pattern recognition, says "C" after hearing "A, B" in order. Recognizing patterns allows anticipation and prediction of what is to come. Making the connection between memories and information perceived is a step in pattern recognition called identification. Pattern recognition requires repetition of experience. Semantic memory, which is used implicitly and subconsciously, is the main type of memory involved in recognition.

Sexual arousal (also known as sexual excitement) describes the physiological and psychological responses in preparation for sexual intercourse or when exposed to sexual stimuli. A number of physiological responses occur in the body and mind as preparation for sexual intercourse, and continue during intercourse. Male arousal will lead to an erection, and in female arousal, the body's response is engorged sexual tissues such as nipples, clitoris, vaginal walls, and vaginal lubrication.

Mental stimuli and physical stimuli such as touch, and the internal fluctuation of hormones, can influence sexual arousal. Sexual arousal has several stages and may not lead to any actual sexual activity beyond a mental arousal and the physiological changes that accompany it. Given sufficient sexual stimulation, sexual arousal reaches its climax during an orgasm. It may also be pursued for its own sake, even in the absence of an orgasm.

Explicit memory (or declarative memory) is one of the two main types of long-term human memory, the other of which is implicit memory. Explicit memory is the conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences, and concepts. This type of memory is dependent upon three processes: acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval.

Explicit memory can be divided into two categories: episodic memory, which stores specific personal experiences, and semantic memory, which stores factual information. Explicit memory requires gradual learning, with multiple presentations of a stimulus and response.

Stimulation is the encouragement of development or the cause of activity in general. For example, "The press provides stimulation of political discourse." An interesting or fun activity can be described as "stimulating", regardless of its physical effects on senses. Stimulate means to act as a stimulus to; stimulus means something that rouses the recipient to activity; stimuli is the plural of stimulus.

A particular use of the term is physiological stimulation, which refers to sensory excitation, the action of various agents or forms of energy (stimuli) on receptors that generate impulses that travel through nerves to the brain (afferents). There are sensory receptors on or near the surface of the body, such as photoreceptors in the retina of the eye, hair cells in the cochlea of the ear, touch receptors in the skin and chemical receptors in the mouth and nasal cavity. There are also sensory receptors in the muscles, joints, digestive tract, and membranes around organs such as the brain, the abdominal cavity, the bladder and the prostate (providing one source of sexual stimulation). Stimulation to the external or internal senses may evoke involuntary activity or guide intentions in action. Such emotional or motivating stimulation typically is also experienced subjectively (enters awareness, is in consciousness). Perception can be regarded as conceptualised stimulation, used in reasoning and intending, for example. When bodily stimulation is perceived it is traditionally called a sensation, such as a kind of touch or a taste or smell, or a painful or pleasurable sensation. This can be thought of as psychological stimulation, which is a stimulus affecting a person's thinking or feeling processes.