IS IMPRINTING SUCH A SPECIAL CASE

As the results of relatively brief exposure to a particular type of object early in life, many birds and mammals will form strong and exclusive attachments to that object. This is known as "filial imprinting'. Some characteristics of imprinting are undoubtedly because of the naive animal searching for and responding selectively to particular stimuli. But at least two types of plastic change seem to be involved: establishing an internal representation of the familiar object and pre-emptive capturing by that representation of the systems controlling filial behaviour and, much later in development, sexual behaviour. The second plastic change is likely to generate the phenomenon of a sensitive period and gives the formation of social attachments some of its other peculiar properties. The first change is likely to be the process used in most forms of recognition. Distinguishing between the sub-processes that underlie an overall change in behaviour serves to make links between different areas of knowledge about learning which have hitherto been poorly connected. -from Author