Preferences for specific mates is determined, at least
in part, by sexual imprinting. Several studies have
demonstrated that adult males preferentially mate
with females that have attributes similar to those of
the female that nursed them early in life. Yamazaki et
al. (1988) found that
male mice nursed by foster mothers
choose to mate with females that resembled their
foster mother rather than their biological mother...
..Perhaps the most provocative report of
sexual imprinting
is that of Kendrick, Hinton, and Atkins (1998), who
demonstrated that sexual partner preferences can be
achieved
between goats and sheep using cross-fostering
to manipulate the imprinting process. In males
and females of both species,
sexual partner preferences
were toward members of the opposite sex of the
species of the foster, rather than biological, mother...
..The importance of adult sexual experience on partner
preferences has been clearly demonstrated..
..(see Kippin
et al., 1998 for more details). We have termed this
phenomenon
conditioned ejaculatory preference
(CEP) because it is specific to ejaculation and
develops
according to the rules of associative learning. These
findings are particularly remarkable because they
demonstrate that in a polygamous species
mate selection
is influenced by previous sexual experience, as it
is in monogamous species. Moreover,
mate preferences
in polygamous males
can be toward sexual partners
which resemble previous ones rather than toward
novel ones, as would have been predicted by the
Coolidge effect (see Dewsbury, 1981).
We have also found that the UCS necessary to support
the development of CEP is an event triggered by
ejaculation, but not ejaculation per se. When males are
allowed to copulate to ejaculation with a scented female
and the female is removed immediately follow-ing ejaculation, males fail to display CEP. Conversely,
when a scented female is present following ejaculation
produced by copulation with either a scented or an
unscented female, males display CEP for the scented
female (Kippin and Pfaus, 2001b). Thus, males need
not actually to copulate with the female, but merely
have to be exposed to a scented female during the
postejaculatory refractory period for CEP to develop.
These findings demonstrate that
postejaculatory
events are capable of supporting conditioning of sexual
partner preferences and are similar to those found
in place conditioning with sexual reward (see Ågmo
and Berenfeld, 1990; Paredes and Alonso, 1997).
Source:
http://www-psychology.concordia.ca/fac/pfaus/Pfaus-Kippin-Centeno(2001).pdf
