Imagination and Invention by Gilbert Simondon

Author:Gilbert Simondon [Simondon, Gilbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: PHI040000 PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Critical Theory, SOC052000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies, PSY008000 PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Part III

The Affective-Emotional Content of Images

The a posteriori Image, or Symbol

A. The Level of Elementary Conditionings: Prägung and Critical Periods

1. Imprinting (Prägung, Prégnation)

In 1935, Lorenz described a mode of acquisition consisting of a very short and very early kind of impregnation.1 Such a mode of acquisition produces modes of activity and reactions to stimuli taken to be congenital instincts which are in fact a particular type of learning. Lorenz discovered this mode of conditioning because he thought that the categorical imperative of researchers in ethology was to live with animals in their natural environment, leaving them free to retain the tempo of their spontaneous existence. Moreover, Lorenz perfected this method of observation through participation by learning gestures, vocal expressions, and attitudes allowing a human being to intervene by forming a natural group with the animal; hence, for a bird born in an incubator a human may play the role of mother if he or she can answer the cries of a young bird as its mother would do. Lorenz studied the complete set of behaviors of a chick named Martina by learning the meaning of the chick’s “wiwiwiwi” (“I’m here, where are you?), its “wirrrr, wirrrr,” etc., and the various cries of the adult, “gangangangang,” or “gangingang,” or “ran.” By thus instituting a very early relation between the young animal and the observer, Lorenz noted that learning processes occur over a very short time; a certain number of hours or days after its birth, a young bird (grey goose or duck) is imprinted with the image of its parent-being, whether its natural parent or an adopted parent, a human or an animal of another species; to achieve this, a certain number of signals and responses are required. Imprinting occurs or at least takes hold within a regime of exchanges between the young and its surroundings; accordingly, a chick may start by following a dog yet soon abandon this adoptive parent that does not answer its characteristic signals, while a relation with a nurturing human parent can become lasting if the human has learned to respond according to the semantics of the species.

These observations are far from isolated and may be associated with several categories of facts whether among animals or humans. It has been noticed in particular that the parasitic varieties of the cuckoo species, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, are endowed with the capacity of recognizing their nurturing parents; the young cuckoo, once adult, is able to recognize the nest of its host species and, by preference, will lay eggs in this species’ nest; learning here amounts here to a “second nature,” since the offspring of a cuckoo born in a warbler’s nest, for instance, will go on laying eggs in warblers’ nests. Without making hypotheses on representation among birds, we can say that, practically speaking, being born in a given milieu allows the recognition of this milieu through certain characteristic stimuli and generates a tendency to choose this milieu over others. Among humans, observed

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.