I dont believe it.

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by Neville, Mar 16, 2003.

  1. Neville Registered Senior Member

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    I have heard about this before. Why is it still considered a valid theory when it has not been proven in animals, let alone humans!
     
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  3. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I thought that imprinting in animals was a well established phenomenon. Some type of birds (geese or ducks) attach themselves to almost animal that they see soon after hatching. I think there are well documented cases of such birds treating a cat or some other animal as their mother due to such imprinting.

    There are also some experiments indicating that some animals have special learning mechanisms. I am pretty sure the following experiments have been done.
    • Train rats to go to a round hole for food, while getting a mild shock at a square hole. After they are trained to avoid the square hole, reverse the reward and punishment. After a while, they will relearn and go to the square hole for food.
    • Feed then at the first hole they try (either round or square). If they later try the other hole, give them a 10 second shock that almost kills them. They never (or hardly ever) try the hole that gave that fierce shock. This has been given the term traumatic conditioning. It usually takes more than one trial to train a rat.
    • Let a rat go hungry until he is willing to try an unfamiliar food. Several hours later, give him an injection that causes severe stomach cramps and hour or so after the injection. He will not eat that food again. This is considered a special type of learning because the punishment occurs many hours after the stimuli. You cannot train a rat to avoid any other stimuli if the punishment is that far removed in time.
    We certainly have built-in mechanisms for learning a language, which would be almost impossible otherwise. Experiments indicate that babies are also born with depth perception and an instinct to avoid falling from high places.

    It is not unreasonable to assume that humans have some level of imprinting as well as other special learning mechanisms similar to those shown to exist in animals. The major difference with humans is their ability to over ride instincts and Pavlovian conditioning via use of their intelligence and critical judgement.
     
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  5. Charles Fleming Registered Senior Member

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    I agree with Dinosaur. While imprinting (a process that imprints certain things onto an animal and is irreversible) in humans has not been proven it has been shown in Geese and Ducks. While recognition of objects, such as a mother, seems to be innate is there any evidence that this relates to other areas? I don't think there is evidence that imprinting oocurs in humans, which gives a case to those who say that we are not just animals.
     
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