Date: June 16, 2016
Source: Lund University
The researchers have established
that chickens -- just like people -- have colour constancy. For birds, this
means that they, in different environments and under different lighting
conditions, recognise the colour of, for instance, berries and can thereby distinguish
those that are ripe from those that are not. Without colour constancy, they
would not be able to rely on their colour vision -- they would simply see the
berries in different colours as the light changed. They would certainly also
not be able to recognise their own kind of species.
The results were achieved by the
researchers from training chickens. Initially, the chickens were kept in an
environment with white light and had access to containers marked in three
different colours: red, yellow and orange. Only by selecting the orange
container would the birds receive food. The researchers then studied which
container the chickens selected when the light in the room was switched to
different shades of red. The results showed that the chickens continued to
select the orange container.
"We studied many different
lighting conditions to find out how big the changes in light could be without
the chickens losing their colour constancy. This type of study has never been
done before," says Peter Olsson, biologist and one of the researchers of
the world-leading Lund Vision Group at the Faculty of Science at Lund
University.
By using a mathematical model,
the researchers calculated how big the changes in light are inside the
chickens' eyes. The same model can be used on other animals and thereby allow
researchers for the first time to compare the colour constancy of chickens and
birds to the colour constancy ability in other animals.
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