The previous volume in this series (Blass, 1986) focused on the
interface between developmental psychobiology and developmental
neurobiology. The volume emphasized that an understanding of central
nervous system development and function can be obtained only with
reference to the behaviors that it manages, and it emphasized how those
behaviors, in tum, shape central development. The present volume
explores another natural interface of developmental psy- chobiology;
behavioral ecology. It documents the progress made by developmental
psychobiologists since the mid-1970s in identifying capacities of
learning and con- ditioning in birds and mammals during the very moments
following birth-indeed, during the antenatal period. These breakthroughs
in a field that had previously lain dormant reflect the need to "meet
the infant where it is" in order for behavior to emerge. Accordingly,
studies have been conducted at nest temperature; infants have been
rewarded by opportunities to huddle, suckle, or obtain milk, behaviors
that are normally engaged in the nest. In addition, there was rejection
of the exces- sive deprivation, extreme handling, and traumatic
manipulation studies of the 1950s and 1960s that yielded information on
how animals could respond to trauma but did not reveal mechanisms of
normal development. In their place has arisen a series of analyses of
how naturally occurring stimuli and situations gain control over
behavior and how specifiable experiences impose limitations on
subsequent development. Constraints were identified on the range of
interactions that remained available to developing animals as a result
of particular events.
