Latency is a time delay between the moment something is initiated, and the moment one of its effects begins or becomes detectable. The word derives from the fact that during the period of latency the effects of an action are latent, meaning "potential" or "not yet observed". The word can have a number of associations in psychology.

In psychoanalysisEdit

• Latency in child sexuality, a psychoanalytic phase, extending from roughly age seven to twelve, during which sexuality is repressed or sublimated (now more commonly called "middle childhood" and "prepubescence"). See also Freud's model of psychosexual development
• Latent content of dreams

In illnessesEdit

• Clinical latency
• Latency, incubation period

In learning and memoryEdit

• Response latency

In physiological psychologyEdit

• the latency of a physiological response, that is, the delay between a stimulus and the response it triggers in an organism, especially in the nervous system as measured by electrophysiological recordings

In social psychologyEdit

• Latency (political science)