26th August 2020
Auditorium, Museo Revoltella
Of chicks and babies: how to build a social brain
What does a baby human and a chick have in common? Walter Gerbino, professor emeritus at the Department of Life Sciences (University of Trieste) and Giorgio Vallortigara, Neuroscientist at CIMeC – Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, will reveal it. On August 26th, at 4.00 pm at the Auditorium of the Revoltella Museum, the two scientists will present the connection between innate and learned knowledge gained in the very first moments in which an animal interacts with its counterparts.
To what extent are filial responses the outcome of spontaneous or acquired preferences? The case of domestic chicks (Gallus gallus) illustrates that in the absence of specific experience, chicks prefer to approach objects that are more similar to natural social partners. Preferences towards animate stimuli are observed in human neonates as well, confirming that research on precocial species can inform and guide human infant research.
Thus, this similarity between our babies and chicks is not just a curiosity. It becomes useful, for example, in studies and researches on the mechanisms underlying the development of autism spectrum disorders.
Photos Paolo Bernardis, Carlo Fantoni, Walter Gerbino
