Journal
EXPERIMENTAL BRAIN RESEARCH
Volume 199, Issue 3-4, Pages 313-321Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-009-1891-5
Keywords
Pattern recognition; Head bobbing; Visual perception; Image stabilization; Saccadic suppression
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Many birds show a characteristic forward and backward head movement, while walking, running and sometimes during landing flight, called head bobbing. During the hold phase, the head of the bird remains stable in space, while during the thrust phase, the head is rapidly moved forward. Three main functions for head bobbing have been proposed: Head bobbing might have a biomechanical cause, it might serve depth perception via motion parallax, or it might be an optokinetic response that primarily serves image stabilization for improved vision during the hold phase. To investigate vision during the different phases and in particular to test for visual suppression during the saccadic thrust phase, we tested pigeons on a shape discrimination task, presenting the stimuli exclusively either in the hold phase, thrust phase or at random times. Results clearly demonstrate that shape discrimination is as good during the thrust phase as it is during the hold phase.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available