Definition
The rooting reflex is the automatic head turning response to the stimulus of face, mouth, or cheek touching.
The rooting reflex is the automatic head turning response to the stimulus of face, mouth, or cheek touching. Infant apes will involuntarily orient their face toward the stimulation, often the mother’s nipple, searching for the stimulating object with an open mouth. During development, the rooting reflex appears in utero, is present at birth, and disappears in early development. It is a primitive reflex present in newborn apes to facilitate feeding via maternal milk secretion. The rooting reflex is related to the suckling reflex, the automatic sucking response to any pressure to the newborn mammal’s mouth. The rooting reflex has primarily been studied in humans, although it is evident in other apes including chimpanzees (Salloway 2011)....
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References
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Meehan, M.K., Shackelford, T.K. (2021). Rooting Reflex. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1550-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1550-1
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