Rudiments of mind: Insights through the chick model on number and space cognition in animals.

Abstract

Studies on human infants, focused on the ontogenetic origins of knowledge, have provided evidence for a small set of separable systems of core knowledge dealing with the representation of objects, number, and space. We investigated core knowledge systems from a comparative perspective, making use of the domestic chick as a model system, and filial imprinting as a key to animal mind. Here, we discuss evidence showing precocious abilities in the chick for representing: (i) the cardinal and ordinal/sequential aspects of numerical cognition, and (ii) the distance, angle, and sense relations among extended surfaces in the surrounding layout. Some of the abilities associated with core knowledge systems of number and space were observed in the absence of (or with very reduced) visual experience, supporting a nativistic account of the origins of knowledge.

Violations of Core Knowledge Shape Early Learning

“…However, research in non‐human species has found evidence for many similar abilities in controlled rearing conditions that do not offer any relevant learning experience (e.g., object permanence in chicks reared without having seen a single instance of object occlusion). These studies lend credence to the conclusion that core knowledge in humans may also be, at least in part, innate (Vallortigara, ; Vallortigara, Regolin, Chiandetti, & Rugani, ).…”

“…However, research in non-human species has found evidence for many similar abilities in controlled rearing conditions that do not offer any relevant learning experience (e.g., object permanence in chicks reared without having seen a single instance of object occlusion). These studies lend credence to the conclusion that core knowledge in humans may also be, at least in part, innate (Vallortigara, 2012;Vallortigara, Regolin, Chiandetti, & Rugani, 2010). While such evidence has been used to argue that very young infants are equipped with basic expectations about the world, a frequent criticism of the idea of core knowledge is that it denies or ignores the contributions of development and experience.…”

Core knowledge of object, number, and geometry: A comparative and neural approach

“…The domestic chick is a precocial species that has been largely used as a model system in ethology and neurobiology for the study of early learning (Andrew, 1991;Rogers, 1996), and recently it has become a focus of interest and insight with respect to several classical issues in developmental psychology, taking advantage in particular of the behavioural techniques made available by filial imprinting (for reviews see Vallortigara, 2004Vallortigara, , 2006Vallortigara, , 2009bVallortigara, Regolin, Chiandetti, & Rugani, 2010). Imprinting is the learning process by which the young of some animals learn the characteristics of an object-usually a social partner-by simply being exposed to it soon after hatching (Bateson, 2000;Horn, 2004).…”

Numerical competence in animals, with an insight from ants

“…Recent experiments on newly hatched domestic chicks Vallortigara et al, 2010) enable researchers to appreciate core components of animals' numerical cognition, that is, a set of building block systems that emerge early in ontogeny and show characteristic limits of domain and task specificity (sensu Spelke, 2000). Chicks were reared with five identical objects (small balls).…”