Filial Imprinting and Associative Learning: Similar Mechanisms?
Hendrik S. VAN KAMPEN · Netherlands Journal of Zoology · 1992
This paper reviews a series of experiments designed to investigate whether features characteristic for associative learning are also true of filial imprinting. Phenomena resembling blocking and overshadowing in associative learning may occur during imprinting on two different objects, but it is unlikely that the underlying mechanisms are similar to those in associative learning. Potentiation, a phenomenon the converse of overshadowing, was found in experiments on learning about two features of one imprinting object. This result can be explained in an associative way, but differential levels of arousal or attention are also possible explanations. It is concluded that filial imprinting and associative learning are not one and the same process, although they possibly share one or more subprocesses.