The effects of forebrain lesions on innate and imprinted colour, brightness and shape preferences in domestic chicks

Salzen, Eric A.; Williamson, A. J.; Parker, Denis M.

doi:10.1016/0376-6357(79)90015-9

Cited by 17 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In chicks, lesions in that area drastically decreased visual imprintability and retention, as reported by Salzen et a. (5)(6)(7). But whether acoustic imprinting was similarly affected was not tested.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Acoustic imprinting leads to differential 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in the chick forebrain.

Maier¹,

Scheich²

1983

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This report describes experiments in which successful acoustic imprinting correlates with differential uptake of D-2-deoxy[4C]glucose in particular forebrain areas that are not considered primarily auditory. Newly hatched guinea chicks (Numida meleagris meleagris) were imprinted by playing 1.8-kHz or 2.5-kHz tone bursts for prolonged periods. Those chicks wereconsidered to be imprinted who approached the imprinting stimulus (emitted from a loudspeaker) and preferred it over a new stimulus in a simultaneous discrimination test. In the 2-deoxy-Dglucose experiment all chicks, imprinted and naive, were exposed to 1.8-kHz tone bursts for 1 hr. As shown by the autoradiographic analysis of the brains, neurons in the 1.8&kHz isofrequency plane of the auditory "cortex" (field L) were activated in all chicks, whether imprinted or not. However; in-the most rostral forebrain striking differences were found. Imprinted chicks showed an increased 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in three areas, as compared to naive chicks: (i) the lateral neostriatum and hyperstriatum ventrale, (ii) a medial magnocellular field (medial neostriatum/hyperstriatum ventrale), and (iii) the most dorsal layers of the hyperstriatum. Based on these findings we conclude that these areas are involved in the processing of auditory stimuli once they have become meaningful by experience.Early experience of young animals with a particular sensory stimulus may have deterministic behavioral consequences. Subsequently, the animal prefers the familiar stimulus over novel ones. Since its first description by Lorenz (1) this phenomenon is known as "imprinting." Its most conspicuous difference from other forms of learning is that imprinting takes place only during a restricted developmental period of life and that the imprinting effect is considerably resistant to other experience [for recent theories see, e.g., Hess (2) and Immelmann et al. (3)]. This and particular prerequisites for imprinting to occur (e.g., previous, generalized sensory experience, social conditions, complexity of stimuli, and so on) were in the past extensively studied at the behavioral level. Visual stimuli were used almost exclusively, although for many species auditory stimuli are essential (2). Our own experiments with guinea chicks showed that this species imprints successfully on tone bursts (unpublished The present dGlc experiments were undertaken to reveal areas of enhanced activity in the brains of guinea fowl chicks (Numida nwleagris meleagris). These birds have the advantage that we know their vocal repertoires thoroughly (12, 13). Furthermore, differential dGlc uptake into auditory areas in response to various acoustic stimuli has been studied previously (14-16).Chicks imprinted either with 1.8-kHz or 2.5-kHz tones and naive controls were exposed to 1.8-kHz tones in a 1-hr session while injected with dGlc. In autoradiographs, known auditory areas were similarly labeled in imprinted and control chicks. However, three particular areas in the rostral forebrain showed extensive lab...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

Acoustic imprinting leads to differential 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in the chick forebrain.

Maier¹,

Scheich²

1983

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The longer the perceptual exposure to a color the stronger was its acquired preference, especially in selected subjects imprinted to initially unpreferred colors. Yet even the shorter exposure of this study (12 hr) was much longer than what is normally used in traditional imprinting experiments (Bateson, 1973; Hess, 1973; Salzen, Williamson, & Parker, 1979). The present data on continued learning, together with the indication of genotypic influences in learning, call for both (a) using longer than the traditional exposure periods and (b) considering the roles of unconditional preferences in the expression of imprinting effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Constitutional biases in early perceptual learning: III. Similarities and differences between artificially selected and imprinted color preferences in quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica).

Kovach¹

1985

Journal of Comparative Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Here we used blue and orange as colours (there is no evidence that blue is a strikingly preferred colour for imprinting; see e.g. Salzen, Williamson & Parker, 1979).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary imprinting in the domestic chick: Binocular and lateralized monocular performance

Vallortígara¹,

Regolin²,

Zucca³

2000

International Journal of Comparative Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Newly-hatched chicks were reared with a coloured imprinting object on day 1 of life (primary imprinting) and then with an object of a different colour (secondary imprinting) on day 2. They were then tested on day 3 for preferences between the primary and the secondary imprinting object in binocular and in monocular conditions. The main results were that (1) left-eyed chicks usually showed clearer choice than right-eyed chicks;(2) there were colour preferences that appeared to affect choice differently in left-and right-eyed chicks; (3) eye asymmetries were in general more pronounced in males than in females. Experiments using composite stimuli (that contained simultaneously the colours of both the primary and the secondary imprinting objects) and experiments in which retention of memories for the primary and secondary imprinting objects were tested against the preference for novel objects showed that the eye asymmetries cannot be explained neither by hemispheric differences in response to novelty nor by different rates of forgetting of primary and secondary imprinting objects in the two hemispheres. It is argued that properties of single-units responses in neural structures involved in imprinting in the left and right hemisphere can account for these behavioural results.The domestic chick (Gallus gallus) has proved to be an ideal model for studies of imprinting (for recent reviews see Bolhuis & Honey, 1998;Horn, 1998). One unexpected observation that has arisen from such studies concerns the differential role played by the left and right brain hemispheres in imprinting. When newly hatched chicks are exposed to a visually conspicuous object, they approach it, learn its characteristics, and form a social attachment to it. (In the natural environment, the object is usually the hen, but in the laboratory imprinting can be easily obtained using a variety of simple artificial objects.) The intermediate part of the hyperstriatum ventrale (IMHV), an associative forebrain structure, is part of a memory system that encodes a representation of the imprinting object (Horn, 1990). The right and the left IMHV appear, however, to have different roles in memory of the imprinting object. Evidence from lesion and electrophysiological studies suggest that both the right and the left IMHV act as long-term stores (Nicol, Brown, & Horn, 1995), but the right IMHV is also crucial in establishing another store, outside the IMHV region, and referred to as S' (McCabe, We thank Elena da Roit for help in testing the animals and Fabio Marconato for drawing Figure 1.

show abstract

The effects of forebrain lesions on innate and imprinted colour, brightness and shape preferences in domestic chicks

Cited by 17 publications

References 14 publications

Acoustic imprinting leads to differential 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in the chick forebrain.

Acoustic imprinting leads to differential 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in the chick forebrain.

Constitutional biases in early perceptual learning: III. Similarities and differences between artificially selected and imprinted color preferences in quail chicks (Coturnix coturnix japonica).

Secondary imprinting in the domestic chick: Binocular and lateralized monocular performance

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About