+ Follow

• 167 views

Through doing a course project in skills presentation I learned yb's need to get out and learn early. The pigeons in the test were deprived of potential sources of compass information (magnetic, ...

Through doing a course project in skills presentation I learned yb's need to get out and learn early. The pigeons in the test were deprived of potential sources of compass information (magnetic, olfactory, visual, kinesthetic) during displacement to the testing site to rule out the use of path integration or ("route reversal") to determine the home direction. They were enclosed in a box with various filters to mask their senses. The control group was kept in the loft while the experimental group was flown as early as 8 weeks. It was noted the hippocampus had grown significantly in the pigeons that had been flown. The hippocampus of the non-flown pigeons had not increased in size. This indicates the need for pigeons to be flown and orientated at an early age. When they released the non-flown pigeons, very few homed back to the loft.