ArticlePloS one2015
How Lovebirds Maneuver Rapidly Using Super-Fast Head Saccades and Image Feature Stabilization.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 21 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trajectory planning for drone landing, incorporating wind-sensing capabilities, operational and safety objectives, and reinforcement learning.Communications engineering · 2025Article
- Modeling and Analysis of Bio-Inspired, Reconfigurable, Piezo-Driven Vibration Isolator for Spacecraft.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Optic flow based spatial vision in insects.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2023Review
- Gap selection and steering during obstacle avoidance in pigeons.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Through Hawks' Eyes: Synthetically Reconstructing the Visual Field of a Bird in Flight.International journal of computer vision · 2023Article
- Visual Field Analysis: A reliable method to score left and right eye use using automated tracking.Behavior research methods · 2022Article
- Birds both avoid and control collisions by harnessing visually guided force vectoring.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Article
- Inflight head stabilization associated with wingbeat cycle and sonar emissions in the lingual echolocating Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2021Article
- Turbulence explains the accelerations of an eagle in natural flight.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Evolutionary versatility of the avian neck.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- A songbird inhibits blinking behaviour in flight.Biology letters · 2020Article
- How lovebirds maneuver through lateral gusts with minimal visual information.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- A Bird's-Eye View of Regulatory, Animal Care, and Training Considerations Regarding Avian Flight Research.Comparative medicine · 2019Review
- Taking an insect-inspired approach to bird navigation.Learning & behavior · 2018Review
- Head Stabilization in the Pigeon: Role of Vision to Correct for Translational and Rotational Disturbances.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2017Article
- Pigeons (Frontiers in neuroscience · 2017Article
- Visual guidance of forward flight in hummingbirds reveals control based on image features instead of pattern velocity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2016Article
- Saccadic Movement Strategy in Common CuttlefishFrontiers in physiology · 2016Article
- Peripheral Processing Facilitates Optic Flow-Based Depth Perception.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2016Article
- The role of passive avian head stabilization in flapping flight.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Diurnal flying animals such as birds depend primarily on vision to coordinate their flight path during goal-directed flight tasks. To extract the spatial structure of the surrounding environment, birds are thought to use retinal image motion (optical flow) that is primarily induced by motion of their head. It is unclear what gaze behaviors birds perform to support visuomotor control during rapid maneuvering flight in which they continuously switch between flight modes. To analyze this, we measured the gaze behavior of rapidly turning lovebirds in a goal-directed task: take-off and fly away from a perch, turn on a dime, and fly back and land on the same perch. High-speed flight recordings revealed that rapidly turning lovebirds perform a remarkable stereotypical gaze behavior with peak saccadic head turns up to 2700 degrees per second, as fast as insects, enabled by fast neck muscles. In between saccades, gaze orientation is held constant. By comparing saccade and wingbeat phase, we find that these super-fast saccades are coordinated with the downstroke when the lateral visual field is occluded by the wings. Lovebirds thus maximize visual perception by overlying behaviors that impair vision, which helps coordinate maneuvers. Before the turn, lovebirds keep a high contrast edge in their visual midline. Similarly, before landing, the lovebirds stabilize the center of the perch in their visual midline. The perch on which the birds land swings, like a branch in the wind, and we find that retinal size of the perch is the most parsimonious visual cue to initiate landing. Our observations show that rapidly maneuvering birds use precisely timed stereotypic gaze behaviors consisting of rapid head turns and frontal feature stabilization, which facilitates optical flow based flight control. Similar gaze behaviors have been reported for visually navigating humans. This finding can inspire more effective vision-based autopilots for drones.
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