PLoS Biology (Jul 2005)

Visually inexperienced chicks exhibit spontaneous preference for biological motion patterns.

  • Giorgio Vallortigara,
  • Lucia Regolin,
  • Fabio Marconato

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0030208
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 7
p. e208

Abstract

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When only a small number of points of light attached to the torso and limbs of a moving organism are visible, the animation correctly conveys the animal's activity. Here we report that newly hatched chicks, reared and hatched in darkness, at their first exposure to point-light animation sequences, exhibit a spontaneous preference to approach biological motion patterns. Intriguingly, this predisposition is not specific for the motion of a hen, but extends to the pattern of motion of other vertebrates, even to that of a potential predator such as a cat. The predisposition seems to reflect the existence of a mechanism in the brain aimed at orienting the young animal towards objects that move semi-rigidly (as vertebrate animals do), thus facilitating learning, i.e., through imprinting, about their more specific features of motion.