Learning of colour and position cues in domestic chicks: Males are better at position,females at colour

Male and female chicks were trained to discriminate between two boxes for food reinforcement. The correct box was indicated by a colour cue (red or brown) and a position cue (right or left). After learning, the colour and the position cues were dissociated: the right-left location of the two boxes was alternated between trials according to a semi-random sequence.The chicks were thus retrained to discriminate either on the basis of colour (irrespective of position) or on the basis of position (irrespective of colour). There were no sex differences, during training, with both position and colour cues. However, during re-training females performed better on the colour learning task and males performed better on the position learning task.