A formal analysis of the standard operating processes (SOP) and multiple time scales (MTS) theories of habituation

In this article, we compare two theories of habituation: the standard operating processes (SOP) and the multiple time scales (MTS) models. Both theories propose that habituation is due to a reduction in the difference between actual and remembered stimulation. Although the two approaches explain short-term habituation using a similar nonassociative mechanism based on a time-decaying memory of recent stimulus presentations, their understanding of retention of habituation or long-term habituation differs. SOP suggests that retention of habituation happens through associative retrieval from a long-term memory store, while MTS relies on the differential decay rate of a series of memory units. This essential difference implies that spontaneous recovery, which refers to the return of the response to levels above those reached during habituation, is predominantly a consequence of a mixture of decay and loss of association for SOP and exclusively of decay for MTS. We analyze these mechanisms conceptually and mathematically and demonstrate their functioning with computer simulations of conceptual and published experiments. We evaluate both theories regarding parsimony and explanatory power and propose potential experiments to evaluate their predictions. We provide MATLAB-Simulink and Python codes for the simulations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).