Monitor on Psychology - December 2011 - (Page 31)

Wallace Kirkland/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images Dr. eckhard Hess puts a rubber helmet — with prisms in the eyepieces — on a chick to test the animal’s locating ability. Hess took his work home with him, raising chickens, geese, starlings, ducks, hamsters, lambs and other animals at his country home in Maryland. He and his wife fed and cared for the animals, and sometimes enlisted the help of household appliances unintended for such purposes. Their first gosling, for example, was hatched in a makeshift incubator that was ordinarily used as a place for the rising of yeast dough. By 1985, he and his wife had raised a population of nearly 100 Canada geese. Through the work of Lorenz, Hess and others, imprinting research drew wide attention. It shed light on many important and controversial topics of 1950s psychology, most notably the problem of heredity and learning. Imprinting, it seemed, was different from most forms of learning. It appeared irreversible and confined to a critical period, and seemed not to require reinforcement. Later research suggested that imprinting may in fact be reversible and may extend beyond the critical period identified by Lorenz and Hess. Regardless, their findings helped to usher in a new era of research on behaviors that appeared to be genetically determined and learned. Researchers continue to examine A chick responds to a rubber ball as though it were its mother in Hess’s experiment. the ball was the first object the chick saw after it hatched. imprinting as an example of tightly constrained learning that involves genetic predispositions. And, as the Italian aviator Angelo d’Arrigo showed, imprinting research has practical applications for conserving endangered species. Sadly, d’Arrigo died in 2006 while performing at an airshow in Sicily. However, the practical applications of imprinting continue to be used for similar projects, including Operation Migration, which is teaching captiveborn whooping cranes to follow small aircrafts south for the winter. n Cathy Faye is assistant director of the Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron. Katharine S. Milar, PhD, is historical editor for “Time Capsule.” 31 DeceMber 2011 • Monitor on psychology Three Lions/Getty Images

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - December 2011

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Willpower Pioneer Wins $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize
Single-Sex Schooling Called Into Question by Prominent Researchers
Maternal Depression Stunts Childhood Growth, Research Suggests
For Boys, Sharing May Seem Like a Waste of Time
Good News for Postdoc Applicants
In Brief
Treatment Guideline Development Now Under Way
Government Relations Update
Psychologist Named Va Mental Health Chief
The Limits of Eyewitness Testimony
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Deconstructing Suicide
Questionnaire
A Focus on Interdisciplinarity
A Time of ‘Enormous Change’
The Science Behind Team Science
Good Science Requires Good Conflict
A New Paradigm of Care
Speaking of Education
Science Directions
New Labels, New Attitudes?
Psychologist Profile
Early Career Psychology
Unintended Consequences
Better Options for Troubled Teens
Saving Lives, One Organ at a Time
New Journal Editors
APA News
Division Spotlight
Guidelines for the Conduct of President-Elect Nominations and Elections
American Psychological Foundation
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011

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