Stimuli

Stimuli (plural) or stimulus (singular) refers to anything that activates or registers on the systems of the body and brain.

Stimuli includes all sensations from the outside the body, such as:

• sight
• sound
• taste
• touch
• smell
• temperature

It also includes sensations from inside the body, such as:

• fatigue
• muscle tension
• hunger
• thirst
• pain

Thoughts, memories, and emotions are also types of stimuli.

That’s right, as the mind goes about its business of processing all the other stimuli, it creates all new stimuli of its own. (talk about job security)

In other words, stimuli is anything that activates the nervous system, from inside or outside the body.

It is a short word that encompasses everything you experience in your entire lifetime.

Word Nerdery

In the original Latin, stimulus referred to a pointed stick that was used to prod cattle.

Early psychologists put the term to work in English to indicate anything that prodded, goaded, or otherwise stimulated a reaction from an organism.

Today it refers to any signal or phenomenon that someone reacts to in any way.

You can find the same root word in the English term stimulation which basically refers to the perception of stimuli by the nervous system.

Early Efforts

In the broadest terms, stimuli is anything that generates a response from a living creature.

This linkage between stimulus and response was first recorded in the early 1900’s and became one the early tenets of the then-new science of psychology.

This is why defining this term is so difficult. In the early days of formal psychology everything was divided into two categories: anything that caused response (stimulus) and any effect that resulted from a stimulus (response). A biological version of cause-and-effect.

• Stimuli = anything that causes a response
• Response = anything caused by stimuli

Instead of creating careful scientific standalone descriptions, each term was left relying on the other to define it.

(The broadest and most basic terms are often the hardest to define, because there are so few terms more basic to describe them. For example, it’s easier and more intuitive to describe a bird as a type of animal than it is to describe an animal as a type of living-thing, or to describe a living-thing as a type of thing.)

Stimulus-Response in Daily Life

This linkage between stimulus and response is a standard feature in the animal kingdom. The ability to consciously choose between several responses is a bit more rare.

The ability to regulate your reactions and choose your responses to the stimuli you encounter is the hallmark of a mature human being.

A quote commonly attributed to Viktor Frankl speaks of this acquired ability:

We are surrounded by and filled with stimuli are entire lives. These stimuli call for responses from us, but unlike animals we have the power to override our primitive autopilot and chose the responses that are better for relationships, mental health and life in general.

Choose wisely.

Get Lit

• https://www.etymonline.com/word/stimulus
• https://dictionary.apa.org/stimulus
• https://dictionary.apa.org/stimulation