Spontaneous Preference for Slowly Moving Objects in Visually Naïve Animals

• Main Author: Justin N. Wood
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The MIT Press 2017-09-01
• Series: Open Mind
• Subjects: visual preference; newborn; object recognition; controlled rearing; chick
• Online Access: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/OPMI_a_00012

To perceive the world successfully, newborns need certain types of visual experiences. The development of object recognition, for example, requires visual experience with slowly moving objects. To date, however, it is unknown whether newborns actively seek out the best visual experiences for developing object recognition. To address this question, I used an automated controlled-rearing method to examine whether visually naïve animals (newborn chicks) seek out slowly moving objects. Despite receiving equal exposure to slowly and to quickly rotating objects, the majority of the chicks developed a preference for slowly rotating objects. This preference was robust, producing large effect sizes across objects, experiments, and successive test days. These results indicate that newborn brains rapidly develop mechanisms for orienting young animals toward optimal visual experiences, thus facilitating the development of object recognition. This study also demonstrates that automation can be a valuable tool for studying the origins and development of visual preferences.