I've long thought that this 'dulling of senses' applies more to our defence. They're used to slowly and calmy passing the ball around at the back, with 75% possession. As soon as the opposition apply some speed, urgency and chaos into their attack (once they realised this is how they should play against us), our defence is somewhat pannicked and cannot cope as well as they might have had they been more in tune with a quicker tempo of the game.