Perhaps no other business understands how people perceive the world as much as the advertising industry. Advertisers tap
into the way we react to stimuli, whether visual, auditory or tactile. Through their ads, advertisers are able to influence the way people react to a particular product. The most successful ads tap cause a memorable or emotional response and, most important, trigger purchase. However, advertising campaigns are themselves the products of current social tastes and trends. They are also shaped by the psychological processes of human
perception. This paper looks at the perception phenomena of sensory
adaptation and how it affects the advertising industry. The first part of the paper discusses the current research on sensory adaptation, how it works and the implications on human behavior. In the second part, the paper discusses examples of how sensory adaptation pushes the advertising industry to constantly create new ads and to generate new ways of selling a product.