ArticleRoyal Society open science2023
Sensitivity to the role of an animated agent from observed interactions in newborn chicks (
Article in Royal Society open science, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Human newborns spontaneously attend to prosocial interactions.Nature communications · 2025Article
- On the Perception of Moral Standing to Blame.Open mind : discoveries in cognitive science · 2025Article
- The examination of the relationship between working memory and aggression tendency in terms of self-regulation skills.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Sensitivity to the role of an animated agent from observed interactions in newborn chicks (Royal Society open science · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Few month old human infants are able to detect the social roles of artificial agents and consistently choose the object behaving as 'approacher' rather than 'repulser'. This preference has been considered evidence of a pre-linguistic and pre-cultural origin of the social mind. Similar preferences have not been described in other species, though comparative data could help clarify the nature of this phenomenon and its evolutionary origin. In this study, we investigated sensitivity to the social role of an artificial agent in domestic chicks. Birds offer an excellent model to study the evolutionary roots of cognitive abilities, since they separated from mammals over 300 Ma. Moreover, the investigation of newly hatched chicks allows control for previous experience. After being exposed to computer-presented animations depicting an interaction among two agents, chicks underwent a free choice test among those same objects. While no initial evidence of a clear preference emerged from the planned analysis, chicks in the experimental condition showed a preference for the 'approacher' when controlling for side bias, mirroring human infants behaviour. This suggests the existence of an early ability to discriminate agents from their interactions, independent from any social experience.
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Registered trials
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