[Influence of prenatal auditory experience on the development of visual attachment in the domestic chick]

Newly hatched domestic chicks learned to prefer the object bearing the same visual characteristics as the environment associated to the initially preferred clucking sound. Domestic chicks chose after prenatal exposure between two different clucking sounds by running towards one loudspeaker and settling there. Then all chicks were individually exposed to two alternating optical stimulus situations of equal length, each of which was accompanied by one of the clucking sounds. Subsequently, in an exclusively visual choice situation, the chicks chose the stimulus that had been associated with the preferred clucking sound.