Passive avoidance in chicks as a function of differential rearing

Chickens were tested, following either communal or isolation rearing, on a passive avoidance task at ages ranging from 12 h to 5 days. Performance was poorer after isolation primarily due to lack of improvement in this group with increased test age. These results confirmed the influence of experience in the development of the maturation-dependent processes underlying passive avoidance. The possible nature of such processes was discussed, and an extension of the generally proposed model based on inhibitory control development was outlined, excessive arousal or stress being implicated in the emergence of such inhibition. The importance of such an analysis for more precise testing of the inhibitory model as previously proposed, and specific predictions from this interpretation based on present results, were discussed.