2. Instinct and Early Learning. We must note the
relevance of the writings of Charles Darwin to our
topic, even though the idea of imprinting played no
special part in his thinking. It is noteworthy that
Darwin (in Mind, 1877) showed great interest in child
development, including also infancy learning. More-
over, he was interested in linking together child psy-
chology and animal behavior; and this has contributed
to the subsequent development of modern comparative
psychology. And in concerning himself with instinctive
behavior, Darwin helped to prepare the ground for
the study of the interplay of instinct and early learning,
soon to be taken up by Spalding, and later, in different
ways, by both Freud and the zoological ethologists.
D. A. Spalding published in 1873, in Macmillan's
Magazine, a paper entitled “Instinct, with Original
Observations on Young Animals.” In it he described
the behavior of young domestic fowl, and concluded
that newly hatched chicks will follow almost any mov-
ing figure. Spalding regarded such behavior as “un-
acquired,” that is, instinctive rather than learned. He
saw that these animals' ability to recognize parents,
as distinct from their approach and following behavior,
is not instinctive, but is, in fact, learned. He might have
concluded that early learning takes over at some stage
from instinct; for there is little doubt that chicks which
at first follow instinctively, then learn who their mother
or mother-substitute is, and are eventually able to
discriminate between her and other figures. This was
later more clearly recognized by William James in The
Principles of Psychology (Vol. II, Ch. 24).
Spalding drew attention to a remarkable feature of
such early behavior, namely that the chick would fol-
low its mother, only if it had the opportunity to do
so early enough in life. If faced with her for the very
first time after the opportune or sensitive period has
passed, the chick would fail to follow her and would
show no affinity whatever to her; furthermore, it would
not subsequently be able to develop any attachment
to its mother. We now say that a chick becomes im-
printed to the mother-figure when it learns her charac-
teristics, and forms a tie to her. Spalding reported that
this development was confined to a short period soon
after hatching; and this has since become known, with
some degree of justification, as the critical period for
imprinting.
William James considered that many modes of in-
stinctive behavior, including approach and following
responses, “ripen” at some particular stage in the or-
ganism's life, and then wane again. He also thought—
and this is significant—that at the time of the instinct's
“vivacity,” a habit instigated by the instinct, but
specifically determined by the environmental circum-
stances encountered, is acquired. Such habit-formation
was regarded by James as consisting of the superimpo-
sition of early learning upon instinct. Furthermore,
James suggested that “in the chickens and calves...
the instinct to follow and become attached fades out
after a few days, and that the instinct of flight then
takes its place” (ibid., p. 398). This idea was later taken
up by experimentalists such as W. H. Thorpe, R. A.
Hinde and others, but, as research progressed, serious
doubts about it began to be entertained. However,
there is no doubt about the importance of the interac-
tion between “built-in” and learned behavior early in
the life of many avian and mammalian species, includ-
ing man.
