Escape and avoidance learning in newly hatched domestic chicks.

Under the conditions specified, chicks fail to learn either to escape or to avoid shock on the day of hatching. Chicks trained for the first time on the day after hatching quickly learn to escape but do not learn to avoid shock. Avoidance learning first appears on the third day of life, and from that time the number of chicks learning to avoid increases with age, so that by the fifth day of life the majority are able to do so.