Sevgi Yaman | PubMed Health

PubMed2003

Visual lateralization in the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus): evidence for a population asymmetry?

A previous behavioural study with a single bottlenose dolphin had reported a right eye superiority in visual discrimination tasks, indicating a left hemisphere dominance for visual object processing. The presence of a functional asymmetry demonstrated with one individual shows that this function can be lateralized in this single animal, but cannot reveal if this represents a population asymmetry. Therefore, we conducted a series of visual discrimination experiments with three individuals of Tursiops truncatus under monocular conditions. The tested animals had to distinguish between simultaneously presented stimulus pairs of different patterns, whereby one stimulus was always defined to be correct. Additionally, the animals were observed for their free eye use during training and introduction of new items. The present data set revealed a right eye advantage (left hemisphere dominance) for all tested animals and a predominance of right eye use during daily activities. These results make it possible that bottlenose dolphins are lateralized for visual pattern discrimination at the level of a population asymmetry. Against the background of similar data in other vertebrates, a left hemisphere dominance for pattern discrimination points to the possibility that dolphins exploit local visual details instead of global configurational features to recognize and memorize visual stimuli.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2003

A bottlenose dolphin discriminates visual stimuli differing in numerosity.

A bottlenose dolphin was trained to discriminate two simultaneously presented stimuli differing in numerosity (defined by the number of constituent elements). After responding correctly to stimuli consisting of three-dimensional objects, the dolphin transferred to two-dimensional stimuli. Initially, a variety of stimulus parameters covaried with the numerosity feature. By systematically controlling for these stimulus parameters, it was demonstrated that some of these attributes, such as element configuration and overall brightness, affected the animal's discrimination performance. However, after all the confounding parameters were under control, the dolphin was able to discriminate the stimuli exclusively on the basis of the numerosity feature. The animal then achieved a successful transfer to novel numerosities, both intervening numerosities and numerosities outside the former range. These findings provide substantial evidence that the dolphin could base his behavior on the numerosity of a set independently of its other attributes and that he represented ordinal relations among numerosities.

Animals↗