Is imprinting such a special case?

1990 ◽  
Vol 329 (1253) ◽  
pp. 125-131 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Familiar Object ◽  
Early Experience ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Sexual Preferences ◽  
Naive Animal ◽  
Filial Imprinting ◽  
Special Case ◽  
Plastic Change

As the result 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’. Early experience can also have long-lasting effects on sexual preferences, but the conditions are different from those in which the first attachments are formed. Some of the characteristics of imprinting are undoubtedly because of the naive animal searching for and responding selectively to particular stimuli. But that is not all. 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 some overdue links between different areas of knowledge about learning which have hitherto been poorly connected.

How and why a patient begins to call his wife “mom”: cases of changing the terms of kinship

2021 ◽  
Vol LII (3) ◽  
pp. 88-94
Author(s):  
Iosif M. Zislin
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Dysfunction ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Sexual Partner ◽  
Oedipal Complex ◽  
Special Case ◽  
Clinical Cases

This is a paper showing how and why a patient starts calling his wife mom. An example of some cases is discussed. Such speech formulas, well known in everyday life, are described in linguistics as a pragmatic shift. It was demonstrated that such a temporary transposition of the name occurs in patients suffering from depression and associated sexual dysfunction. Methods of linguistics, anthropology and psychoanalysis have been used to analyze the described clinical cases. It is suggested that such transposition reflects an unconscious taboo and a mirror inversion of the oedipal complex. The standard and permissible marital sexual behaviour become incestuous through renaming the sexual partner in the described cases. The aforementioned transposition in the focus of therapy can be considered as a special case of (psychological) speech defense, which we have designated as rhetorical illocutionary defense.

scholarly journals Resurgence of a perinatal attraction for animate objects via thyroid hormone T3

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Lorenzi ◽  
Bastien S. Lemaire ◽  
Elisabetta Versace ◽  
Toshiya Matsushima ◽  
Giorgio Vallortigara
Keyword(s):  
Thyroid Hormone ◽  
Biological Motion ◽  
Molecular Mechanisms ◽  
Time Windows ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
High Plasticity ◽  
Transient Responses ◽  
Physiological Mechanisms ◽  
Filial Imprinting ◽  
Human Neonates

SummaryFor inexperienced brains, some stimuli are more attractive than others. Human neonates and newly-hatched chicks preferentially orient towards face-like stimuli, biological motion, and objects changing speed. In chicks, this enhances exposure to social partners, and subsequent attachment trough filial imprinting. Early preferences are not steady. The preference for stimuli changing speed fades away after three days in chicks. To understand the physiological mechanisms underlying these transient responses, we tested whether the early preferences for objects changing speed can be promoted by thyroid hormone 3,5,3’-triiodothyronine (T3). This hormone determines the start of imprinting’s sensitive period. We found that the preference for objects changing speed can be re-established in female chicks treated with T3. Moreover, day-one chicks treated with an inhibitor of endogenous T3 did not show any preference. These results suggest that the time windows of early predispositions and of high plasticity are controlled by the same molecular mechanisms.

scholarly journals Stabilization of Sexual Preferences By Sexual Experience in Male Zebra Finches Taeniopygia Guttata Castanotis

Behaviour ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 118 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 144-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicky Clayton ◽  
Hans-Joachim Bischof
Keyword(s):  
Zebra Finch ◽  
Sexual Partner ◽  
Foster Parents ◽  
Taeniopygia Guttata ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Zebra Finches ◽  
Sexual Preferences ◽  
Bengalese Finch ◽  
Choice Tests

AbstractMale zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata castanotis, were normally-raised by zebra finches or were cross-fostered to Bengalese finch, Lonchura striata, foster-parents until 40 days of age. Following isolation until day 100, half the birds in each group were housed with a zebra finch female for seven days, isolated for three days and then housed with a Bengalese finch female for seven days. The other birds were exposed to females in the reverse order. Subsequent double-choice tests showed that all the normally-raised birds preferred zebra finch females whereas the preferences of cross-fostered males depended on the order of exposure to the two females: those exposed first to a Bengalese finch female preferred Bengalese finch females whereas of those exposed first to a zebra finch female, some preferred zebra finches, some preferred Bengalese finches and some showed no marked preference for either female. In order to examine the question of why the latter group showed such marked individual variation in their sexual preferences, a further group of males were cross-fostered to Bengalese finches and exposed to a zebra finch female and then to a Bengalese finch female and their behaviours were observed from day 21 until day 40 and for the two, seven-day periods with the females. The results show that, when comparing brothers within clutches, the one that begs and is fed more by by its foster-parents develops a stronger preference for Bengalese finch females and that the more song phrases a male directs to the zebra finch female during the first seven-day period, the stronger the sexual preference for zebra finch females in the double-choice tests. Hence, our results confirm and extend those of IMMELMANN et al. (1991) and KRUIJT & MEEUWISSEN (1991) that sexual imprinting may be a two step process. As a first step, information about the parents is learnt during a sensitive period early in life. In a second step, this information has to be tested for its validity for the selection of a sexual partner during first courtship encounters. It is this second step where the previously stored information is stabilized in memory. Giving conflicting information during the first and the second step, one can show that interactions between the young male and its parents as well as with its first sexual partner influence the final preference it shows in subsequent double choice tests.

Cannabinoids, Reward, and Addiction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda A. Parker
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Dopamine Release ◽  
Morphological Changes ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Cannabis Use Disorder ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Special Case

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter critical for reward processing and is elevated by most addicting drugs. The effect of THC and other CB1 agonists moderately elevate dopamine in reward related regions of the rodent brain; however, there is less consistent evidence in humans for marijuana-induced changes in dopamine release or for morphological changes in brain reward areas. In humans, cannabis use disorder has been identified, which shows similar features of other substance use disorders, but not in the same extremes as opiates, psychostimulants or alcohol. This chapter discusses the interaction between cannabis and other drugs in relapse to drugs use, with a special case for the interaction between cannabinoids and opiates. Finally, the relationship between cannabinoid effects on men and women in sexual behaviour is discussed.

Changes in Social Reactions Resulting from Early Experience with Another Species

1970 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsti Lagerspetz ◽  
Tuula Heino
Keyword(s):  
Open Field ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Social Preference ◽  
Sexual Interest ◽  
Preference Test ◽  
Early Experience ◽  
Female Partner ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Open Field Activity ◽  
Field Activity

28 mice were reared by rat-mothers and siblings from the age of 1 to 3 days, whereas controls were reared with mouse-mothers and siblings. When adults, both groups preferred their foster-species in a social-preference test. More aggression was directed toward a mouse-partner than toward a rat-partner in both groups. The mouse-reared group was generally more aggressive than the rat-reared group. The rat-reared group showed no aggression toward rats. Being reared by rats decreased the sexual behaviour toward mice. No copulation with small (prematurely oestrous) female rats occurred, but sexual interest was shown by the rat-reared mice. Aggressive responses toward the female partner occurred significantly more often when the female did not belong to the fostering species. No differences in open-field activity were found.

Imprinting as Social Learning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Sexual Imprinting ◽  
Konrad Lorenz ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Filial Imprinting ◽  
Precocial Birds

Imprinting is a form of rapid, supposedly irreversible learning that results from exposure to an object during a specific period (a critical or sensitive period) during early life and produces a preference for the imprinted object. The word “imprinting” is an English translation of the German Prägung (“stamping in”), coined by Konrad Lorenz in 1935 to refer to the process that he studied in geese. Two types of imprinting have traditionally been distinguished: filial imprinting, involving the formation of an immediate social attachment to the mother or a mother-substitute, and sexual imprinting, involving the formation of a sexual preference that is manifested later in life. Both types of imprinting were subject to extensive experimental study beginning around 1950. Originally described in precocial birds (ducks, geese, and domestic chickens), imprinting has also been used to explain the formation of early social attachments in other species, including human infants. Imprinting has served as a useful model for studying the neural processes involved in learning and behavioral development and has provided a framework for thinking about other developmental processes.

Early and later experience with one younger sibling affects face processing abilities of 6-year-old children

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola Macchi Cassia ◽  
Valentina Proietti ◽  
Antonella Pisacane
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Early Experience ◽  
Sensitive Period ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Face Representation ◽  
Facial Identity ◽  
Generalized Inversion ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Infant Faces

Available evidence indicates that experience with one face from a specific age group improves face-processing abilities if acquired within the first 3 years of life but not in adulthood. In the current study, we tested whether the effects of early experience endure at age 6 and whether the first 3 years of life are a sensitive period for the effects of experience on perceptual learning. To this end, we compared the effects of early (before age 3) and later (after age 5) experience with one younger sibling on 6-year-olds’ processing of adult and infant faces. Unlike children without siblings, those with a younger sibling were equally skilled at differentiating faces of the two ages and showed a generalized inversion effect for both face ages, irrespective of when exposure to the sibling face began. Results indicate that face representation retains flexibility in response to extensive exposure to one facial identity even after age 3, and perceptual learning engendered by early experience continues to affect face-processing skills at 6 years.

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