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Pigeons make slow, divergent eye movements during flight and large, convergent eye movements when landing

A dispatch from PubMed — filed

As animals move through the world, images of surfaces and edges in the environment move across the retina, a visual signal known as optic flow. 1 Optic flow is beneficial for several processes, perhaps most notably navigation, 2 but it poses a conundrum. When faced with optic flow, the optomotor body, head, and eye movements reflexively minimize optic flow to maintain a stable retinal image....

Clinical Takeaway

No actionable change — this study examines pigeon eye movements and has no relevance to audiology or hearing healthcare.

Why It Matters

This study has no meaningful relevance to the audiology field; it appears in this feed likely due to a broad PubMed query capturing vision/neuroscience literature.

Key Points
  1. 01Pigeons use slow divergent (outward) eye movements during flight to process visual motion.
  2. 02Large convergent (inward) eye movements occur during landing.
  3. 03The study investigates optic flow processing in avian vision.
  4. 04No auditory, vestibular, or hearing-health component is present.
  5. 05Published in Current Biology; zero relevance to clinical audiology.
Research metadata
PMID
42409016
DOI
10.1016/j.cub.2026.06.015.
Journal
Current Biology
Publication type
research_article
Evidence level
4
Population
Pigeons during flight and landing
Intervention
Observation of eye movements during flight and landing

Primary outcomes

Characterisation of divergent eye movements during flight; Characterisation of convergent eye movements during landing

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