PERCEPTUAL-LEARNING DURING FILIAL IMPRINTING - EVIDENCE FROM TRANSFEROF TRAINING STUDIES

Chicks were first imprinted by exposing them to a moving training stim ulus, B or C, that was projected onto a screen at one end of an experi mental cabinet. Subsequently, subjects selectively approached the stim ulus to which they had been exposed. On the following day, the chicks were placed into a chilled experimental cabinet (15-degrees-C) and rec eived trials on which two stimuli (A and B) were projected onto screen s located at opposite ends of the cabinet. If the subject approached S timulus A, a stream of warm air was delivered; if it approached B, the trial terminated, and no heat was presented. For subjects that had be en imprinted with Stimulus B, those in Group B, Stimulus A was novel, and Stimulus B was familiar. For chicks that had been imprinted with S timulus C, Group C, both A and B were novel. In two experiments, Group B acquired the discrimination more rapidly than did Group C. This obs ervation, made using a novel training procedure, was taken to support the suggestion that imprinting results in a form of perceptual learnin g in which the familiar imprinting object has become more discriminabl e from other novel objects.