Please have a look at some of our publications listed below

Predispositions

Bliss L, Vasas V, Freeland L, Roach R, Ferrè ER, Versace E ( 2023 ) . A spontaneous gravity prior: Newborn chicks prefer stimuli that move against gravity . Biology Letters vol. 19 , ( 2 ) 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0502

Pallante, V., Rucco, D. & Versace, E. (2021) Young chicks quickly lose their spontaneous preference to aggregate with females. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 75, 78. 

Lorenzi, E., Lemaire, B. S., Versace, E., Matsushima, T., & Vallortigara, G. (2021). Resurgence of an inborn attraction for animate objects via thyroid hormone T3. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience, 15, 72.

Rosa-Salva, O., Mayer, U., Versace, E., Hebert, M., Lemaire, B.S., Vallortigara, G. (2021). Sensitive periods for social development: Interactions between predisposed and learned mechanisms. Cognition.

Hébert, M., Versace, E. and Vallortigara, G. (2019). Inexperienced preys know when to flee or to freeze in front of a threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(46), pp.22918–22920.

        Szabó, E., Chiandetti, C., Téglás, E., Versace, E., Csibra, G., Kovács, Á. M., & Vallortigara, G. (2021). Young domestic chicks spontaneously represent the absence of objects. BioRxiv, 2021.01.20.427266. 

Versace, E., Ragusa, M. & Vallortigara, G. (2019). A transient time window for early predispositions in newborn chicks. Sci Rep 9, 18767. 

Versace, E., Damini, S. and Stancher, G. (2020). Early preference for face-like stimuli in solitary species as revealed by tortoise hatchlings. PNAS, 117(39), 24047-24049.

Versace, E., Ragusa, M. & Vallortigara, G (2019). A transient time window for early predispositions in newborn chicks. Sci Rep 9, 18767. 

Lorenzi, E., Pross, A., Rosa-Salva, O., Versace, E., Sgadò, P., & Vallortigara, G. (2019). Embryonic exposure to valproic acid affects social predispositions for dynamic cues of animate motion in newly-hatched chicks. Frontiers in Physiology, 10(APR), 501. 

Versace, E., Martinho-Truswell, A., Kacelnik, A., & Vallortigara, G. (2018). Priors in Animal and Artificial Intelligence: Where Does Learning Begin? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22(11), 963–965. 

Learning and imprinting

Versace, E., Ragusa, M., Pallante, V., & Wang, S. (2021). Attraction for familiar conspecifics in young chicks (Gallus gallus): An interbreed study. Behavioural Processes, 193, 104498. 

Lemaire, B.S., Rucco, D., Josserand, M., Vallortigara, G., Versace, E. (2021). Stability and individual variability of social attachment in imprinting. Scientific Reports 11: 7914.

Versace, E., Rogge, J. R., Shelton-May, N., & Ravignani, A. (2019). Positional encoding in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus). Animal Cognition, 22(5), 825–838. 

        Rosa-Salva, O., Fiser, J., Versace, E., Dolci, C., Chehaimi, S., Santolin, C., & Vallortigara, G. (2018). Spontaneous Learning of Visual Structures in Domestic Chicks. Animals 2018, Vol. 8, Page 135, 8(8), 135. 

       Versace, E., Spierings, M. J., Caffini, M., Carel Ten Cate, •, & Vallortigara, G. (n.d.). (2017). Spontaneous generalization of abstract multimodal patterns in young domestic chicks. Animal Cognition. 

Artificial minds, robotics and computational tools

        Wang, C., Benetos, E., Wang, S., & Versace, E. (2021). Joint Scattering for Automatic Chick Call Recognition. https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.03965v1

Slonina, Z., Bonzini, A. A., Brown, J., Wang, S., Farkhatdinov, I., Althoefer, K., Jamone, L., & Versace, E. (2021). Using RoboChick to Identify the Behavioral Features Promoting Social Interactions. IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning, ICDL 2021. 

Josserand, M., Rosa-Salva, O., Versace, E., & Lemaire, B. S. (2021). Visual Field Analysis: a reliable method to score left- and right eye-use using automated tracking. BioRxiv, 2021.05.08.443242. 

Asymmetries and lateralisation

Versace, E., Sgadò, P., George, J., Loveland, J. L., Ward, J., Thorpe, P., Jensen, L. J., Spencer, K. A., Paracchini, S., & Vallortigara, G. (2021). Light-induced asymmetries in the embryonic retina are mediated by the vascular system and extracellular matrix. BioRxiv, 

Versace, E., Caffini, M., Werkhoven, Z., & de Bivort, B. L. (2020). Individual, but not population asymmetries, are modulated by social environment and genotype in Drosophila melanogaster. Scientific Reports 2020 10:1, 10(1), 1–13. 

        Versace, E., & Vallortigara, G. (2015). Forelimb preferences in human beings and other species: Multiple models for testing hypotheses on lateralization. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(MAR), 233. https://doi.org/10.3389/FPSYG.2015.00233/BIBTEX

Experimental evolution

Hsu, S.-K., Lai, W.-Y., Novak, J., Lehner, F., Jakšić, A. M., Versace, E., & Schlötterer, C. (2021). Pre- and post-mating reproductive isolation evolve independently during rapid adaptation to high temperature. BioRxiv, 2021.11.08.467720. 

        Hsu, S. K., Jakšić, A. M., Nolte, V., Lirakis, M., Kofler, R., Barghi, N., Versace, E., & Schlötterer, C. (2020). Rapid sex-specific adaptation to high temperature in drosophila. ELife, 9.