 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 0012-1630/99/030215-11 Robert Carlsen Robert Lickliter Department of Psychology Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061 Augmented Prenatal Tactile and Vestibular Stimulation Alters Postnatal Auditory and Visual Responsiveness in Bobwhite Quail Chicks Received 13 November 1998; accepted 1 April 1999 ABSTRACT: The fact that the sensory systems do not become functional at the same time during early development raises the question of how sensory systems and their respective stimulative histories might influence one another. Previous studies have shown that unusually early visual experience can alter subsequent responsiveness of both the visual system and the earlier developing olfactory and auditory systems. The question remains as to the extent which modified stimulation to an earlier developing system can also result in changes in responsive- ness in later developing sensory systems. This study examined the effects of augmented prenatal tactile and vestibular stimulation on bobwhite quail chicks’ postnatal visual and auditory re- sponsiveness to maternal cues. Results indicate that augmented prenatal tactile and vestibular stimulation can alter postnatal perceptual responsivensss in the later developing auditory and visual sensory systems. Chicks exposed to augmented prenatal proximal stimulation continued to respond to maternal auditory cues into later stages of postnatal development and failed to demonstrate responsiveness to maternal visual cues in the days following hatching. However, augmented 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 substan- tially increased amounts of prenatal sensory stimulation can interfere with the emergence of species-typical perceptual functioning.  1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 35: 215– 225, 1999 Keywords: perceptual development; prenatal sensory experience; augmented sensory stimu- lation How individual sensory modalities relate to one an- other and how their functions are integrated in the brain have been the subjects of increasing research at- Correspondence to: R. Lickliter Contract grant sponsor: NIMH Contract grant numbers: R01-MH 48949 and K02-MH 01210 tention over the last decade (Ettlinger & Wilson, 1990; Knudsen & Brainard, 1995; Lewkowicz & Lickliter, 1994; Smith & Katz, 1996; Stein & Meredith, 1993). From a developmental perspective, all sensory sys- tems begin to develop prenatally in birds and mam- mals and in precocial species are capable of function before birth or hatching (Bradley & Mistretta, 1975;