AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -In psychology and ethology, imprinting is any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behaviour.

Detailed explanation-2: -Abstract. Two distinctive features of “imprinting” originally emphasized by Lorenz1 were that there was a critical period in which the preference for a particular species was established and that the preference established during this period was permanent and could not be changed by subsequent experience.

Detailed explanation-3: -Lorenz demonstrated how incubator-hatched geese would imprint on the first suitable moving stimulus they saw within what he called a “critical period” between 13 and 16 hours shortly after hatching.

Detailed explanation-4: -imprinting, in psychobiology, 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.

Detailed explanation-5: -Imprinting is a form of learning in which an animal gains its sense of species identification. Birds do not automatically know what they are when they hatch – they visually imprint on their parents during a critical period of development. After imprinting, they will identify with that species for life.