Augmented prenatal tactile and vestibular stimulation alters postnatal auditory and visual responsiveness in bobwhite quail chicks

The fact that the sensory systems do not become functional at the same time during early development mises the question of how sensory systems and the ir respective stimulative histories might influence one another. Previous s tudies have shown that unusually early visual experience can alter subseque nt responsiveness of both the visual system and the earlier developing olfa ctory and auditory systems. The question remains as to the extent which mod ified stimulation to an earlier developing system can also result in change s in responsiveness in later developing sensory systems. This study examine d the effects of augmented prenatal tactile and vestibular stimulation on b obwhite quail chicks' postnatal visual and auditory responsiveness to mater nal cues. Results indicate that augmented prenatal tactile and vestibular s timulation can alter postnatal perceptual responsiveness in the later devel oping auditory and visual sensory systems. Chicks exposed to augmented pren atal proximal stimulation continued to respond to maternal auditory cues in to later stages of postnatal development and failed to demonstrate responsi veness to maternal visual cues in the days following hatching. However, aug mented tactile and vestibular stimulation did not appear to affect prenatal auditory learning of an individual maternal call. These findings indicate a strong but selective pattern of influence between the sensory modalities during the prenatal period and support the view that substantially increase d amounts of prenatal sensory stimulation can interfere with the emergence of species-typical perceptual functioning. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.