In contrast to these individually directed eliciting schemas, the innate ones are built into a complete, species-specific functional plan from the outset, in which it is determined in advance which characteristics are essential. Therefore, it only corresponds to the principle of parsimony if as few characteristics as possible are included in the eliciting schemas. For the sea urchin Sphaerechinus, it is sufficient if its exceptionally highly specialized combined flight and defense reaction against its main enemy, the starfish Asterias, is triggered by a single, specific chemical stimulus emanating from this starfish. Such triggering of a highly motorically complex behavior adapted to a very specific biological process by a single stimulus, or at least by a series of reactions, is characteristic. One would initially expect that in higher animals, to which we must necessarily attribute a material-objective grasp of the environment based on their other behavior, the object of all instinctual behaviors would also be firmly grasped. This would be considered particularly likely where a conspecific represents the object of the action. Strangely, however, a material identity of the conspecific across multiple functional circuits cannot be demonstrated in very many cases. I believe I can offer an explanation for why the subjective identity of the conspecific as an object of various functional circuits is even less of a biological necessity than that of other instinctual objects.
Even in the highest vertebrates, an object-directed instinctual sequence of actions is often triggered by a very small selection of the stimuli emanating from its object, not by its overall material image. When several functional circuits have the same object as their object, it can happen that each of these circuits responds to entirely different stimuli emanating from the same object. The innate triggering schema of an instinctual action selects, so to speak, a small selection from the abundance of stimuli emanating from its object, to which it selectively responds, thus initiating the action. The simplicity of these innate triggering schemas of different instinctual actions can result in two of them not sharing a single stimulus data that triggers their response, even though they are directed at the same object. Normally, the species-specific object sends all stimuli belonging to both schemas together. In experiments, however, the triggering schemas, which precisely because of their great simplicity can often be triggered by artificially presenting appropriate stimulus combinations, can be triggered by two different objects, thus achieving a separation of the two functional circuits directed at one object. Conversely, for the same reasons, one object can trigger two opposing, biologically meaningful reactions only with two separate objects. This is particularly common in those instinctual actions whose object is a conspecific. For example, in various species of ducks, the mother’s defensive reaction can also be triggered by the cry for help of young of different species. Other caretaking reactions, on the other hand, are highly species-specific and tied to very specific coloration and marking patterns on the head and back of the offspring. Thus, it is understandable if a mallard leading her young courageously rescues a Turk’s chick calling for help from danger and, in the next moment, due to the lack of the mallard-specific head and back markings that trigger further care, “unspecifically fusses” at it, i.e., attacks and kills it as a “foreign animal near its own chicks.”
I’m laboriously manually Google-translating Lorenz’s Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels from 1935, since I haven’t been able to find an existing English translation of the complete work and don’t have reliable OCR.
Rewarding passage [ boldface mine ]: