Imprinting

Proximity is taken a little over board with the phenomenon of imprinting. Imprinting, in psychology, a form of learning in which a very young animal fixes its attention on the first object with which it has visual, auditory, or tactile experience and thereafter follows that object. The man most associated for discovering and testing his Nobel winning break through, is biologist Konrad Lorenz. As the book says, 99 percent of the time, the first object that is imprinted on by the offspring, is none other than the mother. The time which imprinting occurs is called the critical sensitive period, and in birds such as ducks and geese, the time for imprinting is 24-48 hours after hatching. During this time, duck and geese offspring will imprint on anything from a human, a dog, bouncing balls, or even boxes on wheels. There are numerous learning methods in our world, but imprinting is the most irreversible, as it is least likely to be unlearned or forgotten. Although humans don't have a finite critical sensitive period of 24 hours like duck and geese offspring, recent studies have shown that in human babies, there is some connection to critical sensitive period and fear of strangers--which occurs at roughly the eight month range.