The cradle of causal reasoning: newborns' preference for physical causality.

Perception of mechanical (i.e. physical) causality, in terms of a cause-effect relationship between two motion events, appears to be a powerful mechanism in our daily experience.

Symmetry perception by poultry chicks and its implications for three-dimensional object recognition.

Bilateral symmetry is visually salient to diverse animals including birds, but whereas experimental studies typically use bilaterally symmetrical two-dimensional patterns that are viewed approximately fronto-parallel; in nature, animals observe three-dimensional objects from all angles. Many animals and plant structures have a plane of bilateral symmetry. Here, we first (experiment I) give evidence that young poultry chicks readily generalize bilateral symmetry as a feature of two-dimensional patterns in fronto-parallel view.

Animal visual perception.

Perception processes can be investigated at the physical (concerning the stimulation from the environment to the receptors), physiological (the processes taking place in the neural system), and psychological (the 'sense' of perception, the outcome produced by the physical stimulation and the physiological processes) level. The present paper focuses on visual perception, mainly from a psychological level of investigation, and revises comparative literature, highlighting both similarities and differences in the visual structures and functions in different animal classes. For this purpose, the structure of the current eyes is described in a comparative perspective, as well as perceptual organization and object recognition processes, color perception, three-dimensional structuring of the image, and motion perception.

Innate sensitivity for self-propelled causal agency in newly hatched chicks.

The idea that sensitivity to self-produced motion could lie at the foundations of the clear-cut divide that the brain operates between the two basic domains of inanimate and animate objects dates back to Aristotle. Sensitivity to self-propelled objects is apparent in human infants from around the fifth month of age, which leaves undetermined whether it is acquired by experience with animate objects or whether it is innately predisposed in the brain. Here, we report that newly hatched, visually naïve domestic chicks presented with objects exhibiting motion either self-produced or caused by physical contact prefer to associate with self-propelled objects.

Lateralization of social cognition in the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus).

In this paper, we report on the ongoing work in our laboratories on the effect of lateralization produced by light exposure in the egg on social cognition in the domestic chick (Gallus gallus). The domestic chick possesses a lateralized visual system. This has effects on the chick's perception towards and interaction with its environment.

Mom's shadow: structure-from-motion in newly hatched chicks as revealed by an imprinting procedure.

The ability to recognize three-dimensional objects from two-dimensional (2-D) displays was investigated in domestic chicks, focusing on the role of the object's motion. In Experiment 1 newly hatched chicks, imprinted on a three-dimensional (3-D) object, were allowed to choose between the shadows of the familiar object and of an object never seen before. In Experiments 2 and 3 random-dot displays were used to produce the perception of a solid shape only when set in motion.