Imprinting and Early Learning

Imprinting and Early Learning

Author: Wladyslaw Sluckin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-12

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1351513184

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What is imprinting and what role does it play in the early development of the individual? What is its theoretical importance for understanding the mechanisms of instinct and learning? What is its significance in the development of the young of our own species? This book attempts to answer all these questions. In recent years imprinting has attracted much interest. This has been in no small measure the result of the admirable writings of Konrad Lorenz. The continued interest in this field of research has been bound up with the realization among students of behavior that imprinting and imprinting-like processes may be highly significant in the ontogenetic development of very many species, possibly including our own. The study of imprinting has become an area of collaboration between zoologists, who were the initiators of the research, and psychologists, who promptly took it up and extended it. Imprinting and Early Learning is a compendium of the data and experimental reports on the youthful study of imprinting and early learning-a progress report that traces the history of interest in the theory of imprinting and similar processes, considers imprinting side by side with related concepts and empirical studies, reviews the full range of experiments that illuminate the characteristic nature of imprinting, elucidates the relationship of imprinting to conditioning and early learning, and points out the implications of imprinting for work in educational, social and abnormal psychology.


Behaviour, Development and Evolution

Behaviour, Development and Evolution

Author: Patrick Bateson

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Published: 2017-02-20

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 1783742518

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The role of parents in shaping the characters of their children, the causes of violence and crime, and the roots of personal unhappiness are central to humanity. Like so many fundamental questions about human existence, these issues all relate to behavioural development. In this lucid and accessible book, eminent biologist Professor Sir Patrick Bateson suggests that the nature/nurture dichotomy we often use to think about questions of development in both humans and animals is misleading. Instead, he argues that we should pay attention to whole systems, rather than to simple causes, when trying to understand the complexity of development. In his wide-ranging approach Bateson discusses why so much behaviour appears to be well-designed. He explores issues such as ‘imprinting’ and its importance to the attachment of offspring to their parents; the mutual benefits that characterise communication between parent and offspring; the importance of play in learning how to choose and control the optimal conditions in which to thrive; and the vital function of adaptability in the interplay between development and evolution. Bateson disputes the idea that a simple link can be found between genetics and behaviour. What an individual human or animal does in its life depends on the reciprocal nature of its relationships with the world about it. This knowledge also points to ways in which an animal’s own behaviour can provide the variation that influences the subsequent course of evolution. This has relevance not only for our scientific approaches to the systems of development and evolution, but also on how humans change institutional rules that have become dysfunctional, or design public health measures when mismatches occur between themselves and their environments. It affects how we think about ourselves and our own capacity for change.


Pukka's Promise

Pukka's Promise

Author: Ted Kerasote

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 0547236263

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A guide to canine care covers such topics as the comparative health of purebred and mixed-breed dogs, the benefits and consequences of common health care practices, and how to identify best pet foods.


Career Imprints

Career Imprints

Author: Monica C. Higgins

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2005-05-13

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0787979309

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Based on her research of 800 biotechnology companies and 3,200 biotechnology executives, Harvard Business School professor Monica Higgins discovered that one firm–Baxter–was the breeding ground for today’s most successful biotechnology ventures. This phenomena of one organization spawning an industry has also been seen in the high-tech (Hewlett-Packard) and semiconductor industries (Fairchild). However, until now there has been no suitable explanation of why and how these organizations were able to create the next generation of industry leaders. Career Imprints shows why Baxter was so successful in spawning senior executives and offers an understanding of what it takes for an organization to produce leaders that will dominate an industry for years to come. In this important book, Higgins shows that an organization’s "career imprint"3⁄4the result of company systems, structure, strategy, and culture3⁄4that employees take with them throughout their careers is the key to creating great leaders. By understanding these factors, staff, human resource executives, and CEOs can analyze their own organization’s career imprint and develop leaders.


The Myth of the First Three Years

The Myth of the First Three Years

Author: John Bruer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-05-11

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1439118744

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Most parents today have accepted the message that the first three years of a baby's life determine whether or not the child will grow into a successful, thinking person. But is this powerful warning true? Do all the doors shut if baby's brain doesn't get just the right amount of stimulation during the first three years of life? Have discoveries from the new brain science really proved that parents are wholly responsible for their child's intellectual successes and failures alike? Are parents losing the "brain wars"? No, argues national expert John Bruer. In The Myth of the First Three Years he offers parents new hope by debunking our most popular beliefs about the all-or-nothing effects of early experience on a child's brain and development. Challenging the prevailing myth -- heralded by the national media, Head Start, and the White House -- that the most crucial brain development occurs between birth and age three, Bruer explains why relying on the zero to three standard threatens a child's mental and emotional well-being far more than missing a few sessions of toddler gymnastics. Too many parents, educators, and government funding agencies, he says, see these years as our main opportunity to shape a child's future. Bruer agrees that valid scientific studies do support the existence of critical periods in brain development, but he painstakingly shows that these same brain studies prove that learning and cognitive development occur throughout childhood and, indeed, one's entire life. Making hard science comprehensible for all readers, Bruer marshals the neurological and psychological evidence to show that children and adults have been hardwired for lifelong learning. Parents have been sold a bill of goods that is highly destructive because it overemphasizes infant and toddler nurturing to the detriment of long-term parental and educational responsibilities. The Myth of the First Three Years is a bold and controversial book because it urges parents and decision-makers alike to consider and debate for themselves the evidence for lifelong learning opportunities. But more than anything, this book spreads a message of hope: while there are no quick fixes, conscientious parents and committed educators can make a difference in every child's life, from infancy through childhood, and beyond.


Domestication and Husbandry of the Paca (Agouti Paca).

Domestication and Husbandry of the Paca (Agouti Paca).

Author: N. Smythe

Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9789251036402

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Possible neotropical mammals for domestication; Comom names; The paca in the wild; Domestication and the paca; Traditional paca raising methods and their short-comings; Project planning; Cage specifications; Methods of introducing potential pair members to one another; The training process; Diet; Health; The reproductive potential of pacas; Is paca domestication economically feasible? Preparing pacas for the table.


The Biology of Learning

The Biology of Learning

Author: P. Marler

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 739

ISBN-13: 3642700942

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P. Marler* and H. S. Terrace** *The Rockefeller University Field Research Center Millbrook, NY 12545 **Dept. of Psychology, Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA For the first half of this century, theories of animal conditioning were regarded as the most promising approach to the study of learning - both animal and human. For a variety of reasons, disillusionment with this point of view has become widespread during recent years. One prominent source of disenchantment with conditioning theory is a large body of ethological observations of both learned and unlearned natural behavior. These challenge the generality of principles of animal learning as derived from the intensive study of a few species in specialized laboratory situations. From another direction, the complexities of human language acquisition, surely the most impressive of learned achievements, have prompted developmental psychologists to doubt the relevance of principles of animal learning. Even within the realm of traditional studies of animal learning, it has become apparent that no single set of currently available principles can cope with the myriad of new empirical findings. These are emerging at an accelerating rate from studies of such phenomena as selective attention and learning, conditioned food aversion, complex problem solving behavior, and the nature of reinforcement. Not very surprisingly, as a reaction against the long-held but essentially unrealized promise of general theories of learning, many psychologists have asked an obvious question: does learning theory have a future? 2 r. Marler and B. S.