Kaspar Hauser experiment

The Kaspar Hauser experiment (also Kaspar Hauser method or Kaspar Hauser experiment ) is understood in behavioral biology to mean the rearing of an animal ("Kaspar Hauser animal") with extensive deprivation of experience; without contact with conspecifics or other animals.

Animal testing

The aim is to prove that all behaviors shown by this animal are anchored in the genome , i.e. must be innate. Chicks that had just hatched from the egg were examined as natural "Kaspar Hauser animals", especially in the early days of ethological research , as they were cut off from all visual and tactile experience in the egg . Many of the founders of ethology came from the zoological field of ornithology , including Oskar Heinroth , William Thorpe , Gustav Kramer and Konrad Lorenz .

Harry Harlow's experiments with young rhesus monkeys are among the most controversial Kaspar Hauser experiments .

Kaspar Hauser

The name Kaspar Hauser attempt goes back to a process in 1828 , which is still shrouded in mystery to this day , when a roughly 16-year-old, neglected-looking boy who could hardly talk and was called Kaspar Hauser , appeared in Nuremberg . He gave the impression of a youngster who had stopped at a toddler's stand. Contemporaries suspected that Kaspar Hauser had been kept lonely in a dungeon for a long time.

Historical experiments with people

According to a story by Herodotus (approx. 490-424 BC), Pharaoh Psammetich I (ruled 664-610 BC) made an attempt in Egypt to learn the original language of mankind . He gave two newborn children to a shepherd and ordered them to be raised so that they should never hear a spoken word. He wanted to find out in which language the children would say a word first. After about two years the children put out their hands pleadingly and said "Bekos". In the Phrygian language this was called “bread”. The Pharaoh concluded from this that the Phrygians were an even older people than the Egyptians. Herodotus story is more likely to be assigned to the realm of fairy tales and legends than the truth.

The experiment was in the 13th century by the Italian chronicler and Franciscans - monk Salimbene of Parma used to Emperor Frederick II. Vilify. In his depiction, however, the infants died prematurely for lack of care.

See also

• Deprivation
• Embossing
• Kaspar Hauser Syndrome
• Wolf child

literature

• Monika Schmitz-Emans : Questions about Kaspar Hauser: drafts of man, language and poetry. Wuerzburg 2007.

Web links

• Evidence of innate behavior: Kaspar Hauser experiments. On: biologie-online.eu , accessed on September 9, 2015
• Relationship is (almost) everything: Kaspar Hauser experiments. On: hr-online.de , audio and text from 2012, accessed September 9, 2015
• Wolf Children: The Kaspar Hauser Complex. 'By Christian Staas. On: spiegel.de from December 25, 2007

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100030873
2. ↑ Monika Schmitz-Emans: Questions about Kaspar Hauser. P. 9
3. ↑ Herodotus: Histories. Book II. 2
4. ↑ see also Monika Schmitz-Emans: Questions about Kaspar Hauser. P. 98
5. ↑ Wolfgang Stürner: Friedrich II. Part 2: The Kaiser 1220-1250. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89678-025-5 , p. 449.