Modified sensory features of social stimulation alter the perceptual responsiveness of bobwhite quail chicks (Colinus virginianus).

This study examined the sensory features of postnatal social experience that bobwhite quail chicks (Colinus virginianus) require to maintain species-typical responding to maternal auditory-visual cues. Chicks were reared in 1 of 3 conditions after hatching: altered tactile, auditory, or visual experience with siblings. Findings revealed that altered tactile, auditory, or visual experience during the first 36 or the first 72 hr following hatching modified chicks' preferential responding to species-specific maternal cues. During the second 36 hr, altered tactile or auditory experience disrupted chicks' perceptual development, whereas altered visual experience did not affect species-typical responsiveness. Results indicate that (a) timing of early postnatal visual experience can affect early filial responsiveness to maternal cues and (b) normal sensory experience derived from early social interaction affects species-typical perceptual development.

Intersensory experience and early perceptual development: postnatal experience with multimodal maternal cues affects intersensory responsiveness in bobwhite quail chicks.

Unlike the other sensory modalities of precocial infants, the visual modality does not normally become functional until after birth or hatching. Despite this unique developmental status, the role of emerging visual experience on postnatal perceptual organization remains unclear. In this study, bobwhite quail hatchlings were reared in conditions that manipulated postnatal experience with maternal visual cues, either alone or in conjunction with maternal auditory cues. Results revealed that bobwhite chicks require postnatal exposure to both maternal auditory and visual cues following hatching to demonstrate species-specific perceptual preferences. Chicks that received temporally disparate maternal auditory and visual cues or experience with only maternal visual or maternal auditory cues failed to show species-typical perceptual responsiveness. These results suggest that developmental mechanisms involving both visual and auditory sensory experience underlie the emergence of early intersensory integration.

Type of prenatal sensory experience affects prenatal auditory learning in bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus).

This study examined the effects of specific types of prenatal auditory stimulation on the auditory learning capacity of bobwhite embryos (Colinus virginianus) incubated in either communal or isolation conditions. Results revealed that socially incubated embryos could learn an individual bobwhite maternal call, whereas embryos denied physical and tactile stimulation as a result of isolation incubation failed to demonstrate prenatal auditory learning of the maternal call. In contrast, embryos exposed to bobwhite chick contentment calls in the period prior to hatching demonstrated prenatal auditory learning, whether they were incubated socially or in isolation. Socially incubated and isolation-incubated embryos exposed to bobwhite chick distress calls failed to learn the individual maternal call, indicating that the type of sensory stimulation the developing organism encounters prenatally is important in fostering normal perceptual learning ability.

Intersensory experience and early perceptual development: the role of spatial contiguity in Bobwhite quail chicks' responsiveness to multimodal maternal cues.

In contrast to the large body of work on young infants' capacity to perceive temporally based intersensory relations, little research has been done on the role of spatial contiguity in the development of audio-visual integration. This study examined the effects of early postnatal sensory experience on an avian neonate's responsiveness to the spatial contiguity between maternal auditory and visual cues. Specifically, we assessed whether a bobwhite quail chick's ability to respond to the correspondence between the location of auditory and visual events is affected by its sensory-stimulation history. Results revealed that chicks denied species-typical auditory or visual experience in the period immediately following hatching showed altered patterns of responsiveness to maternal auditory and visual cues. In particular, chicks that received modified postnatal sensory experience demonstrated a higher tolerance for audio-visual spatial discrepancy than did control chicks. These results provide evidence of the important role of sensory experience in the emergence of intersensory integration during the perinatal period and highlight the role of spatial information in early perceptual responsiveness to maternal cues.