This study shows that while early stress can negatively affect a chicken’s performance in a spatial task, this effect is not replicable in its offspring in a similar spatial task.  T he exposure to early social isolation stress may have damaged neural development, preventing future spatial learning in stressed chickens.  Other researchers have previously found that stress can specifically affect the hypocampus, the region responsible for spatial awareness and orientation.  However, the effects may not have occurred via a heritable mechanism, thereby explaining a lack of effects in the offspring.