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Are You My Mother?: How Animal Imprinting Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles Woody, Took Bryant. Get your imprinting
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: all over me? Stop? Is that? What is that what
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm doing? Yeah, you're rubbing your feathers all over me
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: a feather duster that I'm tickling you with, bokeing me
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  Speaker 1: with your beak. I'm not your parents, you know that's right?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Thank God. What a weird intro that was. Yeah, that
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: was a scene. That's called animal imprinting. I'm sure we've
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: talked about this before, but is it a scene or
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: end scene? Really? Joe ran dazzo to weigh in on
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: this one, but now we don't it's and scene. Um
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: sure comment. I'm positive we have talked about this, and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I know we have, but I don't remember the outcome. Well,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it was me saying it's a scene for sure, and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you're going, sure, that's why we're talking about it again. Okay,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: it's antsen. So animal imprinting, it's a thing. It is.
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  Speaker 1: It's uh in the strictest definition, it is only for birds. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and specific type of birds called precocial birds. Yeah, they're
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  Speaker 1: very precocial exactly. That means that they hatch out the
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  Speaker 1: egg and look around and start waddling, and they're like, oh, look,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: this is water. I think I have this weird and
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  Speaker 1: they urge to get in there and swim, and oh,
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  Speaker 1: here's a little bit of duck food. I think I'll
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  Speaker 1: eat some of that because I have a drive to
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  Speaker 1: do that. But what is that wonderful smell? Oh? I
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  Speaker 1: think this might be the duck that gave birth to
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  Speaker 1: me or laid me as an egg, and now I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to imprint myself on you. It's either that or
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  Speaker 1: it's a grown human man. Yeah, it can't be anything,
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  Speaker 1: especially with ducks, but especially specifically. Precocial birds have a
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  Speaker 1: process where they form an attachment to a parent, and
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  Speaker 1: it's been shown over time that that parent doesn't necessarily
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  Speaker 1: have to be a biological parent. It can not even
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  Speaker 1: be in the same species. It doesn't even have to
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  Speaker 1: be a living thing. No, it can be a toy train, yes,
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  Speaker 1: it can be, or a pair of gum boot yeah. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And humans have known for a very long time about
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: this process. It just wasn't until like the nineteen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: that we started to get a um a real grip
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  Speaker 1: on it. But like apparently in UH, there's a Roman
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: treatise around I guess, like the thirties, in the real thirties,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: I mean like thirty c E. Not no, like thirty
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  Speaker 1: not the swing in thirties, UM, and it's it basically
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  Speaker 1: says like, if you want to train some wild ducks,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: go get yourself some duck eggs, put them under a
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  Speaker 1: hen that you have domesticated, and that handle raised those
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  Speaker 1: ducks is their own and they'll be unwild in UH.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: In rural China, back in the day, rice farmers would
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  Speaker 1: imprint new ducks with a stick so they could then
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  Speaker 1: use that stick to guide them out to their rice
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  Speaker 1: population where they would eat snails right the rice population.
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  Speaker 1: So they literally following this stick around like it's their parents.
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  Speaker 1: So they would lead them to UH to help to
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  Speaker 1: work for them basically, And the whole thing is is
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  Speaker 1: the stick was what they were introduced to at a
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  Speaker 1: very specific time in their life, usually within a couple
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  Speaker 1: of hours, and they said, stick, you're my mom. I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna follow you everywhere. When you're not around, we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: freak out. It's so weird. Yeah, it's and and ducks
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  Speaker 1: are a really great um. They're like a classic example
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  Speaker 1: of imprinting because they're very emotional creatures um, And they
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  Speaker 1: form very strong attachments, and they're very social creatures. So
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  Speaker 1: either they're all those things because they form very strong
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  Speaker 1: imprinted bonds, or they form very strong imprinted bonds because
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  Speaker 1: of all those things. Yeah, well, I think it's a
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  Speaker 1: natural selection at work. So that's the that's the at
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  Speaker 1: the heart of this whole thing is you know, is
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  Speaker 1: it nature versus nurture? And imprinting is a really great
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  Speaker 1: natural experiment to investigate the whole thing. And what it
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  Speaker 1: seems like we found is that it's both that apparently,
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  Speaker 1: especially specifically precocial ducks are hardwired to go seek out
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  Speaker 1: and form an attachment, but depending on what they encounter
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  Speaker 1: at the time e g. Their environment, also known as nurture. UM,
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  Speaker 1: they can form that attachment with a stick or a
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  Speaker 1: toy train or a Nazi. It's very cute actually when
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  Speaker 1: you think about it, you know, they're just like, love
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  Speaker 1: me whatever, hand puppet. What was that Dr. Seuss book?
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I think it was Love Me hand Puppet? I think
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  Speaker 1: it was Are you My Mother? Like Horton makes an
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  Speaker 1: appearance in it. It's like some animals walking around like
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  Speaker 1: are you my mother? Yeah, it is pretty said, but
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  Speaker 1: it's it's basically a doctor who's book about imprinting. Oh cool,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: well you mentioned Nazis, so to me, that's my que
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  Speaker 1: Two segue into the life of Conrad with A. K. Lawrence,
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  Speaker 1: who was Austrian born at the turn of the century
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  Speaker 1: in h three and um. He was big into animals
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  Speaker 1: and he studied regular medicine and then decided this is great.
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  Speaker 1: Humans are fun, but I'm really into studying animals and
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  Speaker 1: their behaviors. That was his bag, so he became a zoologist.
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  Speaker 1: He did. He got a PhD in nineteen thirty three
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  Speaker 1: and started work alongside Oscar Heinroff, who was a fellow
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: scientist with what it was the Austrian or German. I'm
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: not sure, he's probably one of the two. Well, so
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  Speaker 1: Lawrence is working, he's already established himself as a scientist
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  Speaker 1: when the Nazis come marching into town and one of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the things, yeah, one of the things he had to
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: answer four years later when he won the nobe L
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  Speaker 1: Prize for his imprinting work was his um zeal And
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: enthusiasm basically with which he welcomed the conquering Nazis yea,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and took his ideas about domestication and applied them to
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  Speaker 1: the lens of Nazi theory. Yeah. Race, like Conrad Lawrence
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: was a racist in the purest and violist form of
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  Speaker 1: the word. Yes, it's there's no escaping that. No. And
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: he uh, he flat out denied even being a party
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: member until it was proven, and then he was like, oh,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I was forgot about that membership, and he very much
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: tried to to wiggle his way out of that years later,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: um by saying, you know, I think what how it
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: ends up is he's not the only academic that was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: on the wrong side of history, and he came out
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: years later, so like, oh yeah, but I sort of
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  Speaker 1: got swept up. I didn't really mean it in this way.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And science has kind of divided. Some people forgave him
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  Speaker 1: and others did not. Yeah, and it's um, I think
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: science as a whole has forgiven him largely, like science
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: of the capitals. But there are plenty of scientists out
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  Speaker 1: there who are like the guy was a Nazi and
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: he used his theories to help the Nazi regime, Like
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: He was a Nazi psychologist in Austria who um was
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: paid to examine um German Polish uh people, Yes, and
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  Speaker 1: and basically determined that like the the um mating of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: a German person and a Polish person produces undesirable offspring.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Well you throw that out into the Nazi void and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: see what they do with that info. Yeah, they're not
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: gonna be mating with Polish people. So this guy is
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: is he was a an evolutionary theorist of a very
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  Speaker 1: brilliant magnitude great zoologist, but also Nazi and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people calling a question like the work that he
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  Speaker 1: produced um, but again, as a whole, science seems to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: have forgiven him for the most part. Yeah, that's a
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: that's a great sort of a c o A. It's
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: more like the more you know type of thing you
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: got to make the star exactly. So uh that aside,
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  Speaker 1: Let's get back to his work with Oscar Heinroth Um
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  Speaker 1: they were contemporaries and heind Roth he was actually the
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  Speaker 1: first dude, even though he didn't call it imprinting at
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  Speaker 1: the time. He's the German word, Uh progun is that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: how you say it? Yeah, like an a of the
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  Speaker 1: newmout sort of you that's good, that's sounded Swedish chef. Though, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'll probably get taken a task. But from my memory
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  Speaker 1: of German and college, that's right on the money. So uh,
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  Speaker 1: Like I said, he didn't call it imprinting at the time,
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  Speaker 1: but he did study the gray lag geese and found
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  Speaker 1: out that right out of the egg that they um
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  Speaker 1: can attach to humans. And it was a big you know,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: although they did in Rome and ancient China, Germans probably
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: thought they made it that up discovered it first. UM.
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  Speaker 1: And another thing that Lawrence is criticized for, aside from
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  Speaker 1: the Nazi affiliation, was that he was um. He very
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  Speaker 1: readily made an anthrop what's called an anthropic shift, where
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  Speaker 1: he took his findings about animals and was very eager
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  Speaker 1: to extrapolate them onto humans as well, which some people
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  Speaker 1: are like, whoa budd you haven't you haven't shown that
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  Speaker 1: connection yet? You can't. That hadn't always work, No, but
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  Speaker 1: there there has we'll see, like come to there's a
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  Speaker 1: there's an understanding that yeah, there's something similar in humans
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  Speaker 1: and other mammals too, as we'll talk about. Uh. So,
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  Speaker 1: there was one experiment early on where he took some
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  Speaker 1: goose eggs and separated them out into the control and
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  Speaker 1: the experimental experimental group, and of course the experimental he
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  Speaker 1: raised separate from the mother completely. All this sounds gonna
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  Speaker 1: mean too, by the way. Yeah, so all imprinting experience
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  Speaker 1: experiments are about as immoral as they get. Yeah, it's
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  Speaker 1: like ripping the baby right out of the egg or
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  Speaker 1: womb away from its mother, right and in saying like
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  Speaker 1: to see what happens right like here, this gum boot
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  Speaker 1: is your mother. Try growing up normal and socialized with
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  Speaker 1: a gum boot for a mom. No, agreed, You know,
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  Speaker 1: almost across the board, these animals, these are immoral, unethical experiments, agreed.
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  Speaker 1: So the experimental geese only met with him, uh, not
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  Speaker 1: the goose mom at all. And then eventually, to test
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: this out, what he did was he put them, uh,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: he put the groups together, marked them, put him under
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  Speaker 1: a box, and then basically sort of like the old
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: experience like Brady Bunch thing, to see who calls the dog,
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  Speaker 1: which when the dog will come to He had someone
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  Speaker 1: lift the box. He's on one side of the room,
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  Speaker 1: the gooses on the other, and the ones who he
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  Speaker 1: had raised came straight to him. Yeah, which all bet
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: when they lifted that box. It was adorable. A bunch
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of confused duckling sticking around like what was that? Right?
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  Speaker 1: You're my mommy Nazi man, right, the bearded nazis my mom. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: So he finally named it filial filial imprinting. I think
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: filial filial imprinting. Yeah, And it's basically exactly what it
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: sounds like. It's that if you if you imprint, if
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you introduced something or yourself to precocial bird at a
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: certain stage of development, it will say you're my parents. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And he initially called that the critical period, right, is
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the amount of time you had to do that? Yeah?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So he um his studies weren't quite as um like
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: well designed his later studies, but he basically said, like
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: he assumed, probably first ten minutes maybe an hour after
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  Speaker 1: hatching is this critical period. And then he also took
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  Speaker 1: it a step farther by saying it's irreversible. So once
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  Speaker 1: once this duckling thinks the gum boot as its mom,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: it's always going to be stuck with that duck until
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you eat it. So Lawrence like really put a lot
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: out there, and he really moved evolutionary biology ahead to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: a degree. Ethology is the field that he helped found. Um.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But we'll talk about some follow up studies that supported
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: and overturned some of his findings. Right after this, so
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  Speaker 1: chuck Um, Lawrence comes up with filial imprinting right then
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  Speaker 1: later studies in like the fifties and sixties, especially by
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  Speaker 1: a guy named Eckhard Hess and Ao Ramsey who a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: lab in Maryland specifically dedicated to studying animal imprinting, and
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  Speaker 1: they had really great control conditions and they they really
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: refined Lawrence's findings. Yeah, and they studied Mallard ducklings again
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: with the ducks and um, they found that the most
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  Speaker 1: sensitive period was thirteen to sixteen hours after hatching, which
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: was higher more hours than I think Lorenz had found. Correct. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he he headed down to it like three or four hours,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: right tops. Yeah, and this was I guess the ducklings
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  Speaker 1: likes to have a little time to swim around and
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  Speaker 1: get some food, maybe take a rest, and then they'll
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: start getting down to imprinting. Yeah, and he Um, I
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: thought this was super interesting. They also found that the
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  Speaker 1: ducklings that had to go like jump through more hurdles
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  Speaker 1: and go through more to find the parent formed a
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  Speaker 1: stronger attachment. Just kind of makes sense, like you worked
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: harder for it. All right. I guess it's like that
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Morrissey song. The more you ignore me, the closer I get. Man,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: he's the best, the best, ye also the worst as
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: far as like canceling shows and like, I mean, dude,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: cannot like I don't ever completed a full tour. There's
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: no way. It's like every Morrisey tour. Eventually, if you're
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: on the end of that tour, you might as well
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: not even have tickets because you're not gonna be seeing Morrisey. Alright,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that's my little soapbox about morris Finish your tour. That's right,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: you mean I had that happened to us. You had
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Morrisey tickets and see, ah was it recently? It was
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: in the last like two years. He should call every
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: tour like the Morrissey potential to potential tour or first
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: half tour. Uh So back to the ducklings. They also
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: found that, um, they would imprint onto little paper machee
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that they made, which is very sweet colored balls, uh
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: colored more than the white ones, which is interesting. I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: guess I don't know. They must react to color more.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Even though the vision wasn't really a part. I thought
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: it was just sound. It depends smell and touch. So
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: there's a um. There's a PBS Nature special called um
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: My Life as a Turkey, and it's about a researcher
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: who is studying animal imprinting and specifically with turkeys. Turkeys
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: have astounding vision, yeah, just amazing vision. Like they can spot, like, um,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a screw head from a football field away. That's small.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: How do you know did they say screw head? Right? Well, yeah,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: they're known for going and rooting out screw heads at
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: far long distances. They just stop point like a pig
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: within the truffles, right exactly, That's what turkeys are used for. Um.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: But so turkey has very great vision, so I could
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: see color being an environmental cue. Smell, movement, touch. Yeah,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it's a big one al right. So another thing they
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: tried that did not work, which I thought was interesting
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: is going back even before they hatched and using auditory
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: cues in the egg and they found that didn't make
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: any difference. But it's a good thing to test. The
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: guy on the Nature thing though, found the opposite. Really yeah,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: he um, he would talk turkey to the eggs. Oh
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I thought he talked turkey once they were born. No,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: he's while they were eggs. He talked turkey to get
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: them used to it, right, Yeah, and then that's pretty
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: good turkey. And then um, after that, uh, when they
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: were when they were hatched, they he talked turkey again
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: to them and apparently they came right over. But smells
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: also a big one too. The inside of the egg
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: probably smells a lot like the mom. Yeah, you know
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. So all these environmental cues add up
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to what the what this little hatchling is basically mindlessly
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: following because again, all of this imprinting stuff has found
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that animals at least are hardwired to go seek out
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and form these these attachments. Yes, and they also found
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that there that critical period was even longer when they
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: kept them isolated from birth. So they kept them completely
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: socially isolated, they would have up to twenty hours to imprint.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And this caused researcher name, oh boy, uh well, dav Slukan,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: great name. He said, it's actually not a critical period.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Let's call it a sensitive period, right semantics if you
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: ask me. Yeah, but it makes a pretty good point.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It's basically saying like, this thing is not Yes, it
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: appears to be hardwired, but it's also malleable in the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: face of nurture, in the face of the environment. It
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: can be postponed, it can be m altered. Uh, it's
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: not sure versus nurture. It's nature and nurture in conjunction
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: with one another. And so all of this filial imprinting
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that Lawrence first identified and really started systematically studying, and
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that was later carried on in birds um also led
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to the discovery that birds also um imprint sexually as
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: well as fill, and depending on what they attached to
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: filially they will um. Their sexual attachments or sexual preferences
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: will also be altered later on in life. So, in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: other words, a bird that is raised by a human
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: will eventually try and mate with humans, even in the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: presence of other birds of that species. Crazy. Yes, And
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the reason why they think is because um, the bird
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: is basically identifying with what it's taking as its own species. Right,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So it will say a, well, my parent is a human,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: ergo I must be a human, and therefore I want
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: to get with a human. It's a very confused bird, right,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But there's something that they've also found that refines this
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: whole thing even further, and that is that sexual imprinting
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: is basically blocked. They're sexually blind, is what they call it,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: to the person that raised them. So while they might
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: be attracted to humans, they're not going to be attracted
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: their human parent. And there's actually something which, um, we
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: should do an incest episode. I should, Um, that sounds
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: like it's you just pulled that out of thin air,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: but it's remarkably similar. Yeah, there's something that's been noted
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: in humans called the Westmark effect, which we'll have to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: do an incest episode. But super interesting, especially coming from like, um,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: it's like a clinical standpoint of viewpoint. Yeah sure, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: not just like let's do a show on incests gross
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the end, you know, look at it sociologically. That sounds
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: like a stuff. Uh. Back to the birds. Another interesting
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: finding here when they were when they studied the sexual imprinting.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: Initially it was with jackdaws, which are sort of like crows,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: and they found that there were different types of imprinting
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: occurring as they mature. So, in other words, one of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: those jackdaws eight with humans flew with crows, but made
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: it with Jackdaws. Right, So that suggests that they were partying. Dude,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: there are these um so well rounded jackdaws. But it
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: suggests that there are the the different sensitive periods rather
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: than just one right, fourteen to sixteen hours after hatch
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: hats right? Right? Um and it you maybe you have
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a filial imprinting like pretty early on. That's the first one,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: and then sexual imprinting comes after that. Who knows? Who knows? Um, Well,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: we'll talk more about Remember I said Lawrence was accused
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of making the anthropics shift a little too soon. Sure, well,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: he was vindicated to a large extent. Because a lot
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: of this does apply to mammals as well. We'll talk
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: about that right after this. Before we talk about mammals.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Those this quote that I'm meant to read before the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: last break, he talked about the guy who talked turkey,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Joe Hutto, and he has quote he said, um, when
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the when the first pulse emerged, he made his turkey sound,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and as Joe recounts, the pulse turned his head, its
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: eyes met Joe's and quote, something very unambiguous happened in
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that moment. Quote true love and the cute. It is cute,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: but a little creepy. You know, he's like, you know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: we met, our eyes met, and it was and it
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: was unambiguous. Yeah, so anyway, sorry about it. I just
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: had to throw that in there. Nice Joe hutto turkey lover. Yeah,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: go watch my life as a turkey pbs. Uh, let's
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: say turkey lover and jest he was a scientist. Oh yeah,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: he's not a creep. No, creeps don't use boards like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: unambiguous to describe connection. They say get in my van. Right. Alright,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: So mammals UM, this is not exactly, strictly speaking imprinting,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: but they've sort of expanded over the years of definition
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to include, you know, like what happens if you rip
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a monkey away from its mom, which has been done
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: yes by a guy named Harry Harlow in the fifties
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and sixties, the more despicable scientists involved in animal testing.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, Harlowe's tests with UM filial
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: imprinting among mammals and monkeys in particular UM led to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: the animal rights movement. It definitely gave its steam and
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of public support after UM articles and news
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: stories were released about Harlow and when he was vilified,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: he did not buckle under public opinion. He is very
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: famously quoted as who could ever love a monkey? Um?
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Everybody but you. That's what he said in response to
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: being criticized, who could ever love a monkey? Like, what's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: your problem? Idiots? It's a monkey? Yeah, that's yeah. I
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: don't get that. They shouldn't be in charge of running
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: tests about filial imprinting with monkeys. They can just sit
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: there on the sidelines and hate animals. Yeah, watch TV
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I agreed. Um, watch what was the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: broader movie about monkey desk Project X? Yeah that one,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: just watch that on a loop. But the working title
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: was monkey see Monkey do Oh. You're probably right? Um,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: all right, So back to mammals, right. Um. They did
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: some studies in the ninete nineties a researcher named Keith
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Kendrick where they and this one doesn't seem like too
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: much of a stretch, they switched sheep and goats at birth,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: and um, they were allowed contact social contact with their
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: own species, but they were raised by their adoptive parents,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: like the baby sheep was raised by the goat, but
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: they were still allowed to commingle with other sheep. And
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: it still worked. It turned out that they preferred to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: mate with the species of the adopted parent adopted mother.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But they also found very um remarkably or notably, that
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it's reversible as well. Yes, they wanted to see how
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: it would hold upright, So once a year they would
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: bring them all back together, be like, mingo, have some
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: there's some cheese plate over there. They play a little music.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: This is after right after they had removed them from
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the opposite species, put them back with their own species,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and once a year they said, hey, remember those goats
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: that you like so much? Oh, it was like that
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: up okay. So, and what they found was that among
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: females we could say females because we're talking about a
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: different species um the females showed a preference. They reverted
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: to their intra species preference. So like they showed like
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a sexual preference for their own species after about one
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to three years after being returned. Yes, right, yes, but males,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: even after three years of being um ming commingled again,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: they still showed a preference for the species that they
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: did imprinted on. Yeah, they like the goats are still like,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: oh man, I remember those sheep. And the sheep said
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the same thing about the goats exactly where we can
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: go party sheep. Oh. I thought that was really interesting though,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: how I mean, there's no explanation, I guess, but how
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the females and the males reacted. You know, years later
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: males are stubborn. Yeah, I think maybe that's all. It
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: is not not quite as agile. There's another way to
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: put it. So that's cheapen goats. The experiments called the
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: old switchero um. Harry Harlowe did some experiments and he
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: actually um as mean as his experiments were, he actually
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: managed to basically disprove an ongoing debate that had been
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: ongoing up until that point, um whether or not you
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: form an attachment or animals form an attachment based on
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: classical conditioning or based on some sort of evolutionary mechanism.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And so the classical conditioning people said, no, no, all,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: it's it's all about food. So the animal goes up
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and imprints on whatever is giving it food. And what
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: it's doing is it's making an imprint an attachment with
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the person that gives it food. So you're you're looking
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: for the food and you insert the person who gives
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you the food, and then you can remove the food
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and you still have the attachment to the person that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: gave you the food. Classical conditioning just standard Freud stuff, Right,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I punched that button. Food cocaine comes out exactly lots
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: more skinnery, but yeah, conditioning. Um. So with Harlow's experiments,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: he took monkeys, stripped them from their mothers in some cases,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: let them get nice and attached to their mothers, and
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: then stripped them from their mothers. Had all sorts of
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: different designs, but basically the upshot was he introduced them
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to two different mothers. They're both in animate objects. One
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: was a monkey mother made of like wire with like spikes.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: They well, they referred to it as the iron Maiden.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But this one I had food. The other one was
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a inanimate monkey mother who was made of terry cloth.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: It was soft, a little bit like a teddy bear
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: monkey teddy bear, so to a monkey. All of these
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: monkeys showed a preference for the terry cloth monkey mother.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Of course, they would go to this wire monkey mother
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: when they were hungry and would eat and then would
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: immediately go back to the monkey mother. When Harry Harlow
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: came in, I was like, whoa who would scare them all.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: They would all go over to the terry cloth mother.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: So he basically showed that it's not food. By extension,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: it's not classical conditioning. It's it's comfort. It's contact. It
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: may be physical protection, but apparently it is um. It's
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it's contact. And to make an anthropic shift, you can
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: extrapolate that on humans too, because there's a drug called
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: oxytocin that is released UM, especially on skin to skin contact,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: which is why touching and raising UM an infant and
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: holding an infant is extraordinarily important, not just for its development,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: but also for establishing bonds and contact with with that kid. Yeah,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: and especially uh for adoptive parents. They say a lot
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of skin on skin contact as soon as possible is
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: key to establishing that bond. But that's really neat because
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: it means, like the the imprinting is all about. It
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: basically proves family is what you make of it, or
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: family is whatever you find is your family. It does
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: it's not this pre defined structure, it's from a from infancy.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: It's whatever you make of Yeah, that's true. Uh, And
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: then you know Harlowe was like him less and less
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the more you talk about him, But on the other
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: side of the spectrum, what we've learned through all this
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: research is if you work in wildlife conservation, UM, they're
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: not just willy nilly and how they handle animals anymore.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: They go through great pains and efforts to uh. Like
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: we mentioned the hand puppet. You know, they have Operation
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Condor where they will raise these baby condors who are abandoned,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: and they would dress their their hand puppet up to
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: look like a mama condor to feed it and basically
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to do everything they can do to make sure that
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: they can live a regular life in the wild. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: they're not looking for that iron spiked iron maiden in
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the jungle. Uh. And even down to like migratory patterns,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: they'll use like the ultra light planes to later teach
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: these birds and they will dress up the plane to
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: look like a condor or whatever, a duck and you
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: know fly uh, you know, the the migratory pattern that
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: they should that they should use the route and there's
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: one of the researchers is inside the glider and that's
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: a condor on the p a going phone. And the
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: cutest thing ever, UM they found out that in uh,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I think it was in Japan that pandas um didn't
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: do so well when they were handled by humans too young,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: so now they were panda suits not adorable, Like you
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: go to work, you punch in, you put on your
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: panda suit and you cuddle with baby pandas well. That
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and it's not just human contact that can screw up,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: like say a panda um. What they found is one
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of the things that Harlow found was that UM imprinting
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: has a lot to do with socialization, so that even
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: if you just stick a baby with the wire spiky
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: iron maiden monkey mother, but you give that monkey twenty
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: minutes a day to socialize with other monkeys, it should
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: turn out okay. But even if it has the terry
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: cloth mother and it's kept in isolation from other monkeys,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: they in turn tend to make um inadequate mothers is
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: what they call them, where they just like neglect their
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: children or smack them around, or just do all sorts
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: of stuff because as their mother was inanimate object, unethical stuff. Yeah,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I feel like we owe the band Iron made in
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: a big apology. Yeah, they're like the bad name. Yeah,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Like this is just supposed to be a torture device,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: not for animals for you, I do. There's a cute
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: salon slide show called twenty Heartwarming Stories of Inner Species Adoptions.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: That's literally the best thing on the Internet in this
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: suite is when you find like a horse cuddling with
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: a puppy or raising it as its own. There's apparently
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a lioness who's well known in a preserve somewhere for
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: um stealing antelope calves and not eating them, but raising
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: them as her own because she wants a kid. It's
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. Animals teaching us the way right. You know,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: who could ever love a monkey? Like? Who cares what
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: you look like? Who cares what what? Who cares if
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I'm meant to eat you? You know I'm gonna raise
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: you as my own? Yeah? Well they I think they
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: often display like true nurturing love more than a lot
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of humans do. Uh. If you guys want to know
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: more about this kind of thing, you can type animal
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: imprinting in the search bar how stuff first dot com
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and also go check out our classic episode animal domestication.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Good one, pretty good um, and you can find that
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: on stuff you Should Do dot com. And I said
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: search bar in there somewhere, so it's time for listener mail.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this gang article recommendation. Hi guys, my
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: name is Ciarra. I just finished listening to How Street
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Gangs Work. I thought it would offer a piece of
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: literature as a suggestion to people interested in reading more
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: about the subject. It's called Gang Leader for a Day
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: by stood here Vin Kates. It's a sociological approach to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: street gangs in Chicago. Started out as a Harvard dissertation
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: with then to Cash, asking what's it like to be
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: poor and black, and turned into seven years of befriending
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a crack dealing gang leader in the projects. It's a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: really great read, very interesting to see a first person
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: account of gang life from someone who was not raised
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: in the community which gangs prevailed, especially when you learn
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: that gangs started to protect black people at its base level.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: So even when you see the gang violence brought forth
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: in the book pages, you also get to see the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: gang members doing everything they can to protect their community members.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Uh the name. There's a New York Times article if
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: you're interested about the book, called if you want to
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Observe Them, Join Them. I think it was like two
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: thousand eight is but I read it's awesome, So thanks
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: for all the work you guys put into the episodes.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I love constantly learning something new, except for when it's
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: about space. I don't want to learn anything about space. Okay,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: it'll make me lose my mind. We thank you, Sira,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Thank you. CIA's appreciate it. Go listen to our episode
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: on the Sun or the make most people lose their
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: minds elevator to the Moon or Mars or the Moon.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Got a lot of them about the space. She's like, yep,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I've avoided them all. Um. We want to know what
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: will make you lose your mind topic wise or actually
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, or if you've ever imprinted on the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: something non human? There you go. You can send us
• 35:23
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• 35:26
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• 35:29
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• 35:31
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• 35:34
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• 35:36
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• 35:43
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