| Among most memorable studies of ethologist Konrad Lorenz was one in 1937 in which he allowed newly hatched goslings to imprint on him instead of the mother goose--and they followed him around wherever he went. Lorenz argued that imprinting is different from associative learning. He first called the phenomenon pr„gung, which means "stamping in" in German and has been translated as "imprinting".
Lorenz (1935) proposed imprinting differed from true associative learning in several important ways. First, susceptibility to imprinting is confined to very limited period in bird's life, the critical period. Second, Lorenz argued that once developed, imprinting is irreversible. For instance, if a bird was imprinted to a bird of another species, later contact with its own species would not eliminate effects of early experience. Third, Lorenz viewed imprinting as a form of superindividual conditioning, in which behaviors are directed not only to the specific animal to which a young bird is exposed to but also to the entire class of organisms of which the imprinting object is a member. Imprinting is highly adaptive for the species. The babies need to stay close to the mother for protection, and to learn species identification. |
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