open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/79730

Combined predisposed preferences for colour and biological motion make robust development of social attachment through imprinting

英語

Domestic chicks

2020-11-11

Springer

Animal cognition

23(1)

169-188

To study how predisposed preferences shape the formation of social attachment through imprinting, newly hatched domestic chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) were simultaneously exposed to two animations composed of comparable light points in different colours (red and yellow), one for a walking motion and another for a linear motion. When a walking animation in red was combined with a linear one in yellow, chicks formed a learned preference for the former that represented biological motion (BM). When the motion-colour association was swapped, chicks failed to form a preference for a walking in yellow, indicating a bias to a specific association of motion and colour. Accordingly, experiments using realistic walking chicken videos revealed a preference for a red video over a yellow one, when the whole body or the head was coloured. On the other hand, when the BM preference had been pre-induced using an artefact moving rigidly (non-BM), a clear preference for a yellow walking animation emerged after training by the swapped association. Even if the first-seen moving object was a nonbiological artefact such as the toy, the visual experience would induce a predisposed BM preference, making chicks selectively memorize the object with natural features. Imprinting causes a rapid inflow of thyroid hormone in the telencephalon leading to the induction of the BM preference, which would make the robust formation of social attachment selectively to the BM-associated object such as the mother hen.

学術雑誌論文

Accepted Manuscript

This is a pre-print of an article published in Animal cognition. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01327-5

1435-9448