Development of filial attachment to static visual features of an imprinting object

Distress calling induced by reductions in group size in ducklings reared with conspecifics or imprinting stimuli

“…In contrast, the SIS birds appeared to be much less strongly attached and behaved in a more erratic fashion. This latter result is consistent with research suggesting that visual movement facilitates strong imprinting (e.g., Eiserer, 1980;Hoffman & Ratner, 1973).…”

“…In contrast to both of these conditions, ducklings reared with stationary imprinting stimuli appeared, both on the basis of the distress call data and on the basis of informal observations, to be less strongly attached to these stimuli. This difference in strength of imprinting is consistent both with Hoffman and Ratner's (1973) view that visual movement is a critical component of the learning process by which filial attachments develop and with Bateson's (1964) and Eiserer's (1980) view that visual movement serves to make the imprinting stimulus more conspicuous, hence resulting in stronger imprinting.…”

“…As a further issue, we examined whether movement of the imprinting stimuli might have a critical effect on the ducklings' response to these stimuli. Research on filial imprinting has suggested that movement may be important for imprinting to occur, either because it serves as an innate elicitor of filial behavior (Hoffman & Ratner, 1973) or because it makes the imprinting stimulus more salient (Bateson, 1964;Eiserer, 1980).…”

Acquisition of behavioral control by static visual features of an imprinting object: Species generality

“…At 10-16 h posthatch, each subject was assigned randomly to either the moving-stimulus group (M), for which the imprinting object was in continuous motion throughout each exposure session, or the stationary stimulus group (S), for which the imprinting object remained stationary throughout each exposure session. Group sizes for each species were as follows: ducks, 4 M and 4 S; pheasant, 4 M and 4 S; chickens, 6 M and 6 S; turkeys, 6 M and 6 S; and quail, 6 M and 4 S. Although these sample sizes are small relative to those typically employed in the imprinting literature, previous closely related research (Eiserer, 1977(Eiserer, , 1980Eiserer & Hoffman, 1974;Eiserer et aI., 1975;Gaioni et al, 1978;Hoffman et aI., 1972) has indicated that the phenomenon of concern is robust enough to bear investigation with a small-n methodology.…”

“…As noted elsewhere (Eiserer, 1978b(Eiserer, , 1980, the acquisition of behavioral control by initially neutral features of an imprinting object seems to represent the very essence of infantile attachments to specific surrogate objects. Moreover, the acquisition phenomenon is of great theoretical interest as well, particularly in connection with classical conditioning vs. perceptual learning theories of imprinting (Eiserer, 1978b(Eiserer, , 1980 however, apparently the only precocial bird in which the effect has been specifically studied is the duck (Eiserer, 1977(Eiserer, , 1980Eiserer & Hoffman, 1973, 1974Eiserer, Hoffman, & Klein, 1975;Gaioni, Hoffman, DePaulo, & Stratton, 1978;Hoffman et al, 1972). Klopfer (1965) reported a similar effect in chicks; subjects exposed to a moving object subsequently preferred that object even when it was stationary.…”