Right hemisphere advantage for topographical orientation in the domestic chick

Rashid, Nadeem; Andrew, R.J.

doi:10.1016/0028-3932(89)90069-9

Cited by 156 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Whereas this study found no visuospatial lateralization, a study in homing pigeons revealed a left-hemisphere advantage (Ulrich et al 1999). By contrast, using the method of monocular occlusion, Rashid and Andrew (1989) found superiority of the left eye/right hemisphere during spatial orientation in chicks. Both food-storing and non-food-storing parids and corvids relocated a feeder preferentially by spatial cues when using their left eye, and by object cues when using their right eye, after retention intervals of 5 min (Clayton and Krebs 1994a).…”

Section: Prior and Gü Ntü Rkü Ncontrasting

confidence: 83%

“…Using monocular occlusion, Rashid and Andrew (1989) found more systematic and spatially-focused search behavior in domestic chicks when they used the left eye. Also using monocular occlusion, Clayton and Krebs (1994a) tested the memory of food-storing and non-food-storing passerine birds for feeders that had a trial-unique location within the experimental room and also a trial-unique color pattern.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Parallel Working Memory for Spatial Location and Food-Related Object Cues in Foraging Pigeons: Binocular and Lateralized Monocular Performance

Prior¹,

Güntürkün²

2001

Learn. Mem.

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During foraging, animals can increase their success by both remembering feeding sites and remembering food-related object cues. Because earlier studies have tested either the site or object memory in isolation, the aim of the present study was to evaluate how efficiently birds can utilize both memories simultaneously. Furthermore, the idea was tested that lateralization might be the principle of brain organization that allows for efficient parallel processing. Pigeons learned to search for food in a complex maze with 16 baited sites. To obtain the maximum reward they had to perform two tasks in parallel, a spatial working memory task and an object-specific working memory task. Birds performed well on this dual task but, compared with spatial working memory alone, they were impaired during the first choices of a trial (Experiment 1). When the left and the right brain hemispheres were tested separately by means of monocular occlusion (Experiment 2), object discrimination was better when birds used their right eye/left hemisphere. This was most pronounced during the first choices of a trial. On the spatial component of the task, performance on binocular trials was better than on monocular trials, but monocularly both hemispheres performed at the same level. Results show that on this dual task, discrimination of food-related object cues predominantly involved the left brain hemisphere whereas both hemispheres contributed equally to spatial performance.Animals searching for food can improve their foraging success considerably by learning (e.g., Pulliam 1981;Lewis 1986;Garber 1989; Benhamou 1994;Sherry 1998). This advantage results in several costs. Aside from the investment into the development and maintenance of the neural structures carrying out the learning and memory processes, there are also cognitive costs caused by the fact that certain operations can have an impairing effect on other operations (Dukas 1998). For example, when blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) learned to respond to pictures of moths that were difficult to see against the background, they performed at a much higher level during sessions with only one moth species than during sessions with two moth species presented alternately (Pietrewicz and Kamil 1979). Sticklebacks (Spinachia spinachia) more efficiently learned to attack and handle prey if they fed on one rather than on two types of prey (Croy and Hughes 1991). In addition to demonstrating the importance of cognitive costs, these studies suggest that an adaptive behavioral strategy to circumvent decrements in performance might be to temporarily focus on only one of several types of food available. This was also shown in wood pigeons (Columba palumbus), which feed on a diet similar to that of the species tested in this studythe pigeon, Columba livia. When wood pigeons were experimentally presented with different combinations of seeds, foraging success (as indicated by crop content) was highest in those individuals that had selected a single type of seed (Murton 1971). This suggests that selecti...

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Section: Prior and Gü Ntü Rkü Ncontrasting

confidence: 83%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel Working Memory for Spatial Location and Food-Related Object Cues in Foraging Pigeons: Binocular and Lateralized Monocular Performance

Prior¹,

Güntürkün²

2001

Learn. Mem.

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“…In birds, the optic nerves cross virtually completely [31], enabling unihemispheric visual stimulation by means of eye caps which are fixed to one eye during testing. With this procedure a left hemispheric superiority in learning and discrimination of visual features and a right hemispheric dominance in relational spatial orientation could be revealed in chicks [21,25,27,29], pigeons [20], marsh tits [2], and zebra finches [1]. The common aspect of all of these studies is that lateralized performance levels are observed while the animals discriminate the relevant stimuli for minutes or hours with the left or the right eye only.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Unihemispheric memory in pigeons-knowledge, the left hemisphere is reluctant to share

Nottelmann

Wohlschläger

Güntürkün

2002

Behavioural Brain Research

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In the present study, pigeons were trained under binocular conditions in a conditional visual discrimination in which they were faced with two identical patterns arranged one above the other. In half of these stimulus pairs the animals had to peck the upper pattern, in the other half the lower one. Although only six pairs of stimuli were used, only four out of eight birds reached learning criterion. These animals needed up to 6 months of training with 3050 to 6650 trails. Then, the experiment proceeded under identical conditions using eye caps restricting vision alternatively to the left or the right eye. These monocular tests revealed that three out of four birds virtually had no knowledge of the task contingencies using their left eye (right hemisphere). Again, several thousand trials were needed to train the birds to criterion with their left eye, while they were simultaneously discriminating at a very high level with their right. These results show that memories on task contingencies are stored unihemispherically in the visually dominant left side despite extensive training with both eyes open. Additionally, it can be concluded that the subsequent read-out by the 'naive' hemisphere can be largely restricted, resulting in a 'natural split-brain' like situation in birds. It is speculated that the absence of a corpus callosum in birds restricts interhemispheric transfer of information. #

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“…Studies in various avian species revealed a superiority of the right eye for experiments which require the birds to distinguish between different visual objects [7,18,31,42], to memorize hundreds of abstract patterns [6], or to infer a higher-order rule from serial visual color reversals [2]. If using object-cues or absolute distance measures during orientation in small-scale [32,40] or large-scale environments [41] chicks and pigeons also reach higher levels of performance when viewing with the right eye. In contrast, their left eye system predominantly responds to geometry-based topographical cues and has an advantage for social recognition [40,42].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embryonic light stimulation induces different asymmetries in visuoperceptual and visuomotor pathways of pigeons

Skiba

Diekamp

Güntürkün

2002

Behavioural Brain Research

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In birds, visual object discrimination performance is lateralized with a dominance of the right eye/left hemisphere. This asymmetry is induced by embryonic light stimulation. However, visually guided behavior, even during simple object distinction tasks, is composed of different behavioral and neural modules. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to test whether all neural subsystems involved in visual discriminations are lateralized in a similar way after prehatch visual stimulation. To examine this question, two behavioral paradigms were used which reveal complementary aspects of visually guided behavior. The first was the grain Á/grit discrimination task in which no left Á/right differences in the number of pecks, but significant differences in the number of grains can be found. Therefore, grain Á/grit discrimination reveals visuoperceptual performance but not visuomotor speed. The contrary seems to be the case for a successive pattern discrimination with a VR32 schedule. Here, the hemispheres do not differ with respect to discrimination accuracy but with regard to the number of pecks emitted. Thus, successive pattern discrimination with lean VR schedules reveals hemispheric differences in visuomotor speed without testing visuoperceptual performance. Using these two paradigms a group of light and a group of dark incubated pigeons were tested. The results show that dark incubated birds evinced no asymmetry in any measure while light incubated ones were right-eye dominant in both variables. However, light incubation induced a visual left hemispheric dominance by modulating two different processes, a left-hemispheric increase of visuoperceptual processes; and a right-hemispheric decrease for visuomotor speed. Taken together these data show that embryonic light stimulation elicits visual lateralization by differently modulating visuoperceptual and visuomotor systems in both hemispheres. #

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Right hemisphere advantage for topographical orientation in the domestic chick

Cited by 156 publications

References 11 publications

Parallel Working Memory for Spatial Location and Food-Related Object Cues in Foraging Pigeons: Binocular and Lateralized Monocular Performance

Parallel Working Memory for Spatial Location and Food-Related Object Cues in Foraging Pigeons: Binocular and Lateralized Monocular Performance

Unihemispheric memory in pigeons-knowledge, the left hemisphere is reluctant to share

Embryonic light stimulation induces different asymmetries in visuoperceptual and visuomotor pathways of pigeons

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