Research shows that newly hatched chicks can identify objects visually, even though they had previously only encountered them through tactile sensations. Newly hatched chicks raised in the dark and exposed to a smooth or bumpy cube by mere touch for 24 hours immediately recognized the object visually when first exposed to light. This challenges traditional views on the necessity of learned integration of the senses, pointing to a putative capacity for cross-modal perception in the brain that potentially transforms our understanding of animal cognition and sensory processing.

In a published study Biology LettersResearchers from Queen Mary University of London have solved an age-old philosophical question about vision and touch. Dr. The team, led by Elisabetta Versace, used chickens to finally answer the question posed by William Molyneux in 1688: Can a person born blind instantly recognize objects by sight once they can see?

Molyneux proposed a scenario in which a congenitally blind person learns to distinguish a cube from a sphere by touch. So, will they be able to visually recognize these shapes when they see them? It is ethically difficult to study this issue in humans. However, Dr. Versace and his team used chicks that hatched with well-developed sensory systems.

Dr. D., senior lecturer in the Faculty of Biological and Behavioral Sciences. “Unlike humans and other mammals,” Versace explains, chicks hatch with an advanced sensory system. “This allowed us to raise them in the dark and expose them to smooth or bumpy objects for the first 24 hours of their lives, their first tactile experience.”

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It is noteworthy that chicks touching the smooth object upon first exposure to light often approximate the visual representation of the smooth object and vice versa. This suggests that chicks can naturally associate touch with vision even if they have no prior visual experience.

Dr. “This discovery contradicts traditional theories,” says Versace. “This suggests that our brains are programmed to make connections between different senses before we use them together.”

This discovery opens up exciting new ways to understand how our brain processes information through different senses. It can also lead to a better understanding of how our senses develop and interact with the world around us.