IS VISUAL LATERALIZATION IN PIGEONS SEX-DEPENDENT

Adult homing pigeons (Columba livia) of both sexes were trained binocu larly on a successive pattern discrimination task. After reaching crit erion they performed the task on alternate sessions under monocular le ft or right viewing conditions. Regardless of their gender, all animal s reached higher pecking scores when sight was restricted to the right eye. Due probably to a ceiling effect, the discrimination-accuracy sc ores did not differ between left and right condition. Thus, at least w ith respect to the number of responses emitted, a sex dependency of vi sual lateralization could not be demonstrated. The results are discuss ed in the light of studies which demonstrate that male and female pige ons have similar anatomical asymmetries of their optic tecta.