AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Birds and mammals are born with a pre-programmed drive to imprint onto their mother. Imprinting provides animals with information about who they are and determines who they will find attractive when they reach adulthood. Imprinting has been used by mankind for centuries in domesticating animals and poultry.

Detailed explanation-2: -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.

Detailed explanation-3: -Imprinting can thus establish a filial bond with an individual adult: a form of social cohesion that may be crucial for survival. Behavioral predispositions can act together with the learning process of imprinting in the formation, maintenance, and modification of the filial bond.

Detailed explanation-4: -Sexual imprinting is the process by which a young animal learns the characteristics of a desirable mate. For example, male zebra finches appear to prefer mates with the appearance of the female bird that rears them, rather than that of the birth parent when they are different.

Detailed explanation-5: -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.