Development of selective responses to individual maternal vocalizations in young Gallus gallus

Abstract

One-day-old domestic chicks responded selectively to individual maternal clucks that had previously been presented in association with a familiar visual stimulus. These results are interpreted as evidence that familiar visual stimuli can mediate the development of auditory discriminations between biologically relevant adult vocalizations. Further, such discriminations occur at a time when individual recognition of parental vocalizations is thought to be important for maintaining family units which are threatened with potential disruption after the development of locomotor ability in the precocial young.