title: Newborn chickens generate invariant object representations at the onset of visual object experience.
abstract: To recognize objects quickly and accurately, mature visual systems build invariant object representations that generalize across a range of novel viewing conditions (e.g., changes in viewpoint). To date, however, the origins of this core cognitive ability have not yet been established. To examine how invariant object recognition develops in a newborn visual system, I raised chickens from birth for 2 weeks within controlled-rearing chambers. These chambers provided complete control over all visual object experiences. In the first week of life, subjects' visual object experience was limited to a single virtual object rotating through a 60° viewpoint range. In the second week of life, I examined whether subjects could recognize that virtual object from novel viewpoints. Newborn chickens were able to generate viewpoint-invariant representations that supported object recognition across large, novel, and complex changes in the object's appearance. Thus, newborn visual systems can begin building invariant object representations at the onset of visual object experience. These abstract representations can be generated from sparse data, in this case from a visual world containing a single virtual object seen from a limited range of viewpoints. This study shows that powerful, robust, and invariant object recognition machinery is an inherent feature of the newborn brain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. justin.wood@usc.edu
authors.forename: Justin N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Wood
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn / Q000502:physiology*; D002645:Chickens / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: animal cognition; avian cognition; imprinting; newborn cognition
references.citation: Nature. 1996 Dec 5;384(6608):460-3
references.pmid: 8945472
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001 Apr 10;98(8):4800-4
references.pmid: 11287633
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2012 Mar 7;279(1730):841-6
references.pmid: 21920978
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 May 26;106(21):8748-53
references.pmid: 19429704
references.citation: Cognition. 2011 Oct;121(1):127-32
references.pmid: 21745660
references.citation: Annu Rev Neurosci. 2004;27:649-77
references.pmid: 15217346
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Mar 2;107(9):4483-5
references.pmid: 20160095
references.citation: Behav Brain Res. 2005 Feb 10;157(1):1-9
references.pmid: 15617765
references.citation: PLoS Comput Biol. 2008 Jan;4(1):e27
references.pmid: 18225950
references.citation: Nature. 1996 Jun 13;381(6583):607-9
references.pmid: 8637596
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2009 Jul 7;276(1666):2451-60
references.pmid: 19364746
references.citation: Neural Comput. 1991 Summer;3(2):194-200
references.pmid: 31167302
references.citation: Nature. 2000 Feb 10;403(6770):652-5
references.pmid: 10688200
references.citation: Cognition. 2002 Mar;83(2):B35-42
references.pmid: 11869728
references.citation: Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2009 Feb;19(1):20-6
references.pmid: 19299120
references.citation: J Neurosci. 2013 Apr 3;33(14):5939-56
references.pmid: 23554476
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Jul 13;107(28):12676-81
references.pmid: 20616034
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Sep 2;100(18):10568-73
references.pmid: 12939406
references.citation: Science. 2000 Dec 22;290(5500):2268-9
references.pmid: 11188725
references.citation: Trends Cogn Sci. 2007 Aug;11(8):333-41
references.pmid: 17631409
references.citation: Neuron. 2010 Sep 23;67(6):1062-75
references.pmid: 20869601
references.citation: Neuron. 2012 Feb 9;73(3):415-34
references.pmid: 22325196
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Apr 10;104(15):6424-9
references.pmid: 17404214
references.citation: Anim Cogn. 2010 May;13(3):463-70
references.pmid: 19960217
references.citation: Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Jul;14(7):293-300
references.pmid: 20542462
references.citation: Dev Sci. 2011 Sep;14(5):1235-44
references.pmid: 21884338
references.citation: Nat Neurosci. 2005 Sep;8(9):1145-7
references.pmid: 16116453
references.citation: Nat Neurosci. 2000 Mar;3(3):264-9
references.pmid: 10700259
references.citation: Nat Neurosci. 2002 Jul;5(7):682-7
references.pmid: 12055634
references.citation: Nat Rev Neurosci. 2004 Feb;5(2):108-20
references.pmid: 14735114
references.citation: Science. 1996 Dec 13;274(5294):1926-8
references.pmid: 8943209
references.citation: Proc Biol Sci. 2011 Sep 7;278(1718):2621-7
references.pmid: 21270036
references.citation: Science. 2008 Sep 12;321(5895):1502-7
references.pmid: 18787171
references.citation: Curr Biol. 2013 Jan 7;23(1):R12-5
references.pmid: 23305661
references.citation: Behav Brain Sci. 1998 Feb;21(1):1-17; discussion 17-54
references.pmid: 10097010
references.citation: Vision Res. 1999 Aug;39(17):2885-99
references.pmid: 10492817
references.citation: Cogn Neuropsychol. 2012;29(1-2):213-36
references.pmid: 22292801
references.citation: Behav Brain Res. 1999 Feb 1;98(2):245-52
references.pmid: 10683113
references.citation: Prog Neurobiol. 1997 Feb;51(2):167-94
references.pmid: 9247963
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Oct 16;109(42):16974-9
references.pmid: 23027930
references.citation: Percept Psychophys. 1995 Oct;57(7):971-6
references.pmid: 8532500
references.citation: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997 Apr 1;94(7):2800-4
references.pmid: 9096300
references.citation: Nat Neurosci. 2005 Dec;8(12):1768-75
references.pmid: 16299500