References 419example, the supposed irreversibility of imprinting was ques-
tioned by Salzen and Meyer (1968), who showed that chicks
imprinted on one ball could be shifted to another ball and
reversed. Other important characteristics ascribed to imprint-
ing (e.g., that imprinting is a specialized form of learning,
differing in several important respects from other forms of
learning) seem more feasible (see, e.g., Bateson, 1990). For
example, imprinting occurs more readily to species-typical
stimuli than to artificial stimuli.
Of course, it is not only the study of animal cognition that
can benefit from a better understanding of species-typical be-
havior. We have seen, for example, that children exposed to a
pidgin convert it to a more complex Creole in a single gener-
ation, supplying a good reason for believing, as Pinker (1994)
asserts, that language is an instinct. Perhaps we will come to
better understand this language instinct as we learn more
about other complex (or even simple) instincts in humans and
other animals. That is, similar processes may underlie various
complex instincts, such as the language instinct in humans
and echolocation in bats.
What the future may hold is difficult to say. However,
there are signs that the current divide between animal and
human learning and cognition may diminish, returning us to
a view more commonly held in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. This
time around it may be a much better informed view. It should
benefit from three areas that are much more sophisticated
today than in the past: cognitive neuroscience (e.g., Rapp,
2001), behavior genetics (e.g., Bailey, 1998), and evolution-
ary psychology (e.g., Crawford & Krebs, 1998). Some would
argue that opening laboratory psychology up to these more
biologically informed influences should help to place the
field in a more proper, and thus more useful, perspective. That
is, it should moderate what some see as the extreme environ-
mentalism that has dominated psychology during the past
75 years or so (see, e.g., Pinker, 1994; Tooby & Cosmides,
1992), replacing it with a more balanced view. This more bal-
anced view would hold that environmental influences are
indeed important, but that these work through evolved mech-
anisms to determine behavior. Two prime examples of such
evolved mechanisms cited in this chapter are the language ac-
quisition device of humans, and mechanisms of echolocation
in bats.
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