Baird Emily, Srinivasan Mandyam V, Zhang Shaowu, Cowling Ann
Centre for Visual Science, Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, PO Box 475, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
J Exp Biol. 2005 Oct;208(Pt 20):3895-905. doi: 10.1242/jeb.01818.
Visual control of flight speed in honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) was investigated by training them to fly through a specially constructed tunnel in which the motion, contrast and texture of the patterns lining the walls could be varied. Manipulation of pattern motion revealed that the speed of flight is controlled by regulating the image motion that is experienced by the eyes. Flight speed is surprisingly robust to changes in the contrast and/or spatial texture of the visual environment, suggesting that the underlying movement-detecting mechanisms estimate the speed of image motion in the eye largely independently of these parameters. This ensures that flight speed depends primarily on the distances to nearby surfaces and not upon their particular visual properties, such as contrast or visual texture. The removal of image motion cues drastically compromises the regulation of flight speed, underscoring their role in this function.
通过训练蜜蜂（西方蜜蜂）飞过一个特殊建造的隧道来研究其飞行速度的视觉控制，在该隧道中，墙壁上图案的运动、对比度和纹理可以变化。对图案运动的操纵表明，飞行速度是通过调节眼睛所经历的图像运动来控制的。飞行速度对视觉环境对比度和/或空间纹理的变化具有惊人的鲁棒性，这表明潜在的运动检测机制在很大程度上独立于这些参数来估计眼睛中图像运动的速度。这确保了飞行速度主要取决于到附近表面的距离，而不取决于它们的特定视觉属性，如对比度或视觉纹理。去除图像运动线索会严重损害飞行速度的调节，突出了它们在这一功能中的作用。
