Browsing by Author "Gunturkun, Onur"

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Citation - WoS: 22
Citation - Scopus: 21
Asymmetry of Visually Guided Sexual Behaviour in Adult Japanese Quail (coturnix Japonica)
(Psychology Press, 2007) Gulbetekin, Evrim; Gunturkun, Onur; Dural, Seda; Çeti̇nkaya, Hakan
Sexually active adult Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) were trained to run across either it left- or a right-turning runway to obtain sexual access to a conspecific of the opposite sex. The birds tested with only their right eye in use showed significantly higher latencies to complete the runway task than the birds tested binocularly and those using the left eye. In all of the three experimental conditions, male birds were significantly faster than their female counterparts. Generally, these findings are compatible with previous evidence for lateralisation in sexually motivated behaviour in birds. However, unlike the previous findings that Suggested a loss of lateralisation in pattern discrimination in quail during adulthood, the present study shows that asymmetries in visually guided sexual behaviour persist in adult quail. Thus, our study implies that ontogenetic and lateralised changes within the visual system can be differently organised for different output pathways.
Citation - WoS: 3
Citation - Scopus: 3
Imagine a Mouse and an Elephant: Hemispheric Asymmetries of Imagination
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2017) Dural, Seda; Çeti̇nkaya, Hakan; Gunturkun, Onur
The present study aimed to explore the existence of an asymmetrical bias in the imagination of pairs of objects of unequal size. We assumed that such pairs are conceptualized with the smaller object being placed on the left, creating an ascending size order from left to right. Such a bias could derive from a cognitive strategy known from the mental number line. Sixty-four participants were instructed to imagine stimulus-pairs that were staggered from those showing very prominent intra-pair size differences (e.g., elephant vs. mouse) to very low size differences (e.g., orange vs. apple). The results showed that the tendency to imagine the bigger object on the right side increases with the size difference of the two stimuli. Such a visual field bias was also present in stimulus-pairs including numbers so that the participants imagined smaller and larger numbers on the left and the right side of the visual fields, respectively. Taken together, our findings could imply that the left-to-right orientation observed in our object imagining task may share the same cognitive mechanism as the mental number line.
Citation - WoS: 8
Citation - Scopus: 9
Visual Asymmetries in Japanese Quail (coturnix Japonica) Retain a Lifelong Potential for Plasticity
(Amer Psychological Assoc, 2009) Gulbetekin, Evrim; Gunturkun, Onur; Dural, Seda; Çeti̇nkaya, Hakan
Adult Japanese quail display left-eye/right-hemisphere dominance in visually guided sexual tracking. In 2 experiments, the authors set out to answer if this functional cerebral asymmetry is modifiable by posthatch monocular deprivation, In Experiment 1, the left or the right eye of 2-day old quail were closed for 70 days. Quail were run in a left- or a right-turning runway to obtain access to a conspecific of the opposite sex. The performance of both left and right eye systems was equal. In Experiment 2, the deprived eyes of the quail were opened and the previously open eyes were closed. They were tested with the same runways. Overall, running speed was very low, but the quail showed a left-eye/right-hemisphere superiority. Altogether, these experiments evince 3 insights into cerebral asymmetries in quail. First, posthatch asymmetries of visual input can alter lateralized behavior to an important extent. Second, cerebral asymmetries could involve an interhemispheric inhibition that can be modified by epigenetic factors. Third, even long-term visual deprivation does not abolish a previously established cerebral asymmetry.