Award details

An experimental and mechanistic modelling study of spatial vision in the domestic fowl

Reference	BBS/E/S/00000495
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr John Jarvis
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Silsoe Research Institute
Department	Silsoe Research Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	150,822
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2004
End date	31/05/2005
Duration	14 months

Abstract

A full understanding of the impact of environmental lighting on the behavioural, emotional and overall welfare needs of housed poultry requires quantification of the primary visual functions. Of these, spatial vision remains poorly understood. The work will quantify spatial vision in the fowl through direct measurements of the contrast sensitivity function (MTF) using an operant conditioning paradigm. The data obtained will be used to directly test the hypothesis that a recently published model of human spatial vision is applicable to other species. There will be four phases to the work: (1) Initial model verification. The model for spatial vision cited above will initially be applied to published spatial MTF data for a range of species and compared with those obtained for human. (2) Behaviour experiments. An experimental (operant) method will be developed to condition commercial strains of chicks to associate a sine wave grating with a food reward. Following training, the chick and human spatial contrast sensitivity function will be directly measured for a range of stimulus luminances and sizes. (3) Model applied to SRI data. The spatial vision model will be applied to the measured chicken and human data. This will provide information on optical MTF performance, spatial integration capacity in the visual cortex and level of neural noise in both fowl and human visual systems. (4) Optical measurements. The aberrations and light scattering properties of both fowl and human eyes will be determined in collaboration with the Department of Optometry and Visual Science, City University. This will enable a direct calculation of the optical MTF to be made.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

I accept the terms and conditions of use (opens in new window)

export PDF file

back to list new search