Experiential canalization of behavioral development: Results.

Waddington's (1942) notion of canalization has been widely invoked in developmental psychology to conceptualize species-typical regularities in behavioral development as genetically determined. In contrast, a developmental systems view, such as the one described in the present article, sees the genes as only one component in a hierarchy of influences, all of which contribute to canalize behavioral development. A key issue is that genetic activity does not by itself produce finished traits; differentiation occurs as a consequence of events above as well as below the cellular level, necessarily involving factors in addition to genetic influences to canalize behavioral development. In exploring the possible experiential canalization of development, it was found that the mallard duck embryo's contact call plays a canalizing role in species-specific perceptual development (Gottlieb, 1991). Thus, normally occurring experience, in concert with genetic and other activities, can canalize behavioral development. The concept of canalization has been utilized in several different ways in the psychological literature. Canalization was originally put forward by Holt (1931) to call attention to prenatal conditioning as a factor in narrowing down the initially