LEARNING OF COLOR AND POSITION CUES IN DOMESTIC CHICKS - MALES ARE BETTER AT POSITION, FEMALES AT COLOR

Male and female chicks were trained to discriminate between two boxes for food reinforcement. The correct box was indicated by a colour cue (red or brown) and a position cue (right or left). After learning, the colour and the position cues were dissociated: the right-left locatio n of the two boxes was alternated between trials according to a semi-r andom sequence. The chicks were thus retrained to discriminate either on the basis of colour (irrespective of position) or on the basis of p osition (irrespective of colour). There were no sex differences, durin g training, with both position and colour cues. However, during re-tra ining females performed better on the colour learning task and males p erformed better on the position learning task.