Visual lateralization during feeding in pigeons.
In a quasi-natural feeding situation, adult pigeons had to detect and consume 30 food grains out of about 1,000 pebbles of similar shape, size, and color within 30 s under monocular conditions. With the right eye seeing, the animals achieved a significantly higher discrimination accuracy and, consequently, a significantly higher proportion of grains grasped than with the left eye seeing. This result supports previous demonstrations of a left-hemisphere dominance for visually guided behavior in birds.
D000818:Animals; D010856:Columbidae; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D014796:Visual Perception