SIGNAL INHERITANCE

Abstract

The role of conditioned reflex in the process of the natural selection and in the transmission to the progeny of the individual experience is analysed. The origin of the mechanism of conditioned reflex in animals is considered to be the means of their active adaptation to the environment and of the co-ordination of the adaptive functions of the organism. On the other hand, the conditioned reflex is regarded as a process providing the information and the transmission of the information as well as the individual experience and the adaptive responses of behaviour from generation to generation. Such transmission of the adaptive responses of behaviour to the subsequent generations and to the other members of a community is achieved by means of the formation of the conditioned reflexes of the second order, of the chains of reflexes and of the imitative reflexes. The term "signal inheritance" is proposed by the author to designate this phenomenon, i. e. the transmission of the experience by means of conditioned signals.