Newborn chicks prefer stimuli that move against gravity

• DOI: 10.1101/2022.07.13.499929
• Publication Date: 2022-07-14T03:20:11Z
• Authors: Larry Bliss; Vera Vasas; Laura Freeland; Robyn Roach; Elisa Raffaella F...; Elisabetta Versace
• Keywords: Animacy; Sensory cue

Abstract At the beginning of life, inexperienced animals use evolutionary-given preferences (predispositions) to decide what stimuli attend and approach. Stimuli that contain cues animacy, such as face-like stimuli, biological motion changes in speed, are particularly attractive across vertebrate taxa. A strong cue animacy is upward movement against terrestrial gravity, because only animate objects consistently move upward. To test whether spontaneously considered already at birth, we tested early dark-hatched chicks ( Gallus gallus ) for vs downward moving visual stimuli. We found that, without any previous experience, exhibited a preference approach gravity. control experiment showed these not driven by avoidance These results show newborn attracted movement, indicating gravity can be used orient responses absence experience.