Through their eyes: selective attention in peahens during courtship

Yorzinski, Jessica L.; Patricelli, Gail L.; Babcock, Jason S.; Pearson, J. M.; Platt, Michael L.

doi:10.1242/jeb.087338

Cited by 94 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(46 reference statements)

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“…In visually oriented organisms, for instance, determining the specific components of male signals that females use can help understand the evolution of mating strategies through sexual selection (Ronald, Fernández‐Juricic & Lucas ; Yorzinski et al . ), as well as the mechanisms of reproductive isolation in closely related species living in sympatry (e.g. Santana, Lynch Alfaro & Alfaro ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel system for bi‐ocular eye‐tracking in vertebrates with laterally placed eyes

et al. 2014

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Summary1. Animals use vision to gather information about their environment and then use that information to make behavioural decisions that affect fitness. They will often move their heads or eyes to inspect areas of interest with their centres of acute vision, such as foveae, to gather high resolution information about potential mates, predation risks, or other aspects of the environment. Few studies to date have been able to accurately determine where laterally eyed animals direct their visual attention and how they use their eyes to gather information. 2. We present a non-invasive eye-tracking system that can simultaneously track the gaze of two eyes. This is particularly useful for studying animals with laterally placed eyes (most vertebrates) where the two eyes are viewing different images. This system can also accommodate comparative studies using animals of varying size, including small animals that are not frequently used in eye-tracking studies due to constraints of existing eye-tracking systems. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to test the eye-tracking system, calibration methods and highlight relevant aspects of experimental design. 3. We were able to accurately track the gaze of European starlings with <5 degrees of error. We also found that starlings are more likely to fixate on biologically relevant visual stimuli (e.g. predators and active prey) than simple stimuli (e.g. a dot) in video playbacks. 4. The method presented here can be used to address ecological and evolutionary questions about where animals direct their attention and how they visually inspect mates, food and predators, as well as address management questions about how animals inspect man-made objects. This method can also be used to answer fundamental questions about vision, such as how laterally eyed vertebrates coordinate the use of their eyes laterally and binocularly.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel system for bi‐ocular eye‐tracking in vertebrates with laterally placed eyes

et al. 2014

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“…This degree of variation in the orientation of spontaneous eye movements could be related to the type of center of acute vision (fovea, area, visual streak, or combination of them) as well as the ecology of the species. The availability of new eye tracking technology623 could allow us to test the potential interactions between retinal morphology, head/eye movement behavior, and habitat visual complexity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Head movements are more common than eye movements during gaze shifts in birds5. However, eye movements contribute more to gaze shifting during head turns of smaller compared to those of larger amplitude6.…”

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confidence: 99%

Does retinal configuration make the head and eyes of foveate birds move?

Moore

Tyrrell

Pita

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Animals move their heads and eyes to compensate for movements of the body and background, search, fixate, and track objects visually. Avian saccadic head/eye movements have been shown to vary considerably between species. We tested the hypothesis that the configuration of the retina (i.e., changes in retinal ganglion cell density from the retinal periphery to the center of acute vision-fovea) would account for the inter-specific variation in avian head/eye movement behavior. We characterized retinal configuration, head movement rate, and degree of eye movement of 29 bird species with a single fovea, controlling for the effects of phylogenetic relatedness. First, we found the avian fovea is off the retinal center towards the dorso-temporal region of the retina. Second, species with a more pronounced rate of change in ganglion cell density across the retina generally showed a higher degree of eye movement and higher head movement rate likely because a smaller retinal area with relatively high visual acuity leads to greater need to move the head/eye to align this area that contains the fovea with objects of interest. Our findings have implications for anti-predator behavior, as many predator-prey interaction models assume that the sensory system of prey (and hence their behavior) varies little between species.

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“…Previously, the occurrence of edge markings has been associated with increased concealment, providing indirect evidence for disruptive coloration (Cuthill et al, 2005). The lack of direct functional tests of disruption is due in part to the methodological difficulties of quantifying object recognition, a challenge that may be addressed using eye-tracking technology (Tyrrell, Butler, Yorzinski, & Fern andez-Juricic, 2014;Webster et al, 2013;Yorzinski, Patricelli, Babcock, Pearson, & Platt, 2013). Here, our complementary approach of investigating prey properties that interact with disruption allowed us to functionally evaluate the properties of disruptive coloration, while avoiding the difficulties associated with quantifying object recognition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%