It doesn't deal in addiction but overwhelming stimuli, whether or not they're repeated. Animals can be fooled by unrealistically strong experiences - you can trick a goose into 'hatching' a volleyball - and it appears that humans have somewhat similar responses.
The insights in the two articles aren't vastly different, but there's one intriguing thought: there are actual selection pressures against this. When animals are fooled by superstimuli they're things that are rare (brood parasitism) or nonexistent (volleyballs) - if the extreme stimulus was common they would refine their processing. Some human cases may be hard to avoid (e.g. dopamine receptors) but some might be simpler. It's starting to look like overriding these responses is a major skill for everyday human functioning.
It doesn't deal in addiction but overwhelming stimuli, whether or not they're repeated. Animals can be fooled by unrealistically strong experiences - you can trick a goose into 'hatching' a volleyball - and it appears that humans have somewhat similar responses.
The insights in the two articles aren't vastly different, but there's one intriguing thought: there are actual selection pressures against this. When animals are fooled by superstimuli they're things that are rare (brood parasitism) or nonexistent (volleyballs) - if the extreme stimulus was common they would refine their processing. Some human cases may be hard to avoid (e.g. dopamine receptors) but some might be simpler. It's starting to look like overriding these responses is a major skill for everyday human functioning.