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Objectively identifying landmark use and predicting flight trajectories of the homing pigeon using Gaussian processes

Overview of attention for article published in Journal of The Royal Society Interface, July 2010
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About this Attention Score

  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (70th percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (65th percentile)

Mentioned by

blogs
1 blog

Citations

dimensions_citation
35 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
74 Mendeley
citeulike
2 CiteULike
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Title
Objectively identifying landmark use and predicting flight trajectories of the homing pigeon using Gaussian processes
Published in
Journal of The Royal Society Interface, July 2010
DOI 10.1098/rsif.2010.0301
Pubmed ID
Authors

Richard Mann, Robin Freeman, Michael Osborne, Roman Garnett, Chris Armstrong, Jessica Meade, Dora Biro, Tim Guilford, Stephen Roberts

Abstract

Pigeons home along idiosyncratic habitual routes from familiar locations. It has been suggested that memorized visual landmarks underpin this route learning. However, the inability to experimentally alter the landscape on large scales has hindered the discovery of the particular features to which birds attend. Here, we present a method for objectively classifying the most informative regions of animal paths. We apply this method to flight trajectories from homing pigeons to identify probable locations of salient visual landmarks. We construct and apply a Gaussian process model of flight trajectory generation for pigeons trained to home from specific release sites. The model shows increasing predictive power as the birds become familiar with the sites, mirroring the animal's learning process. We subsequently find that the most informative elements of the flight trajectories coincide with landscape features that have previously been suggested as important components of the homing task.

Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 74 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 6 8%
Spain 3 4%
India 1 1%
Italy 1 1%
Israel 1 1%
United States 1 1%
Unknown 61 82%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 18 24%
Student > Ph. D. Student 17 23%
Student > Bachelor 9 12%
Student > Master 6 8%
Professor > Associate Professor 5 7%
Other 10 14%
Unknown 9 12%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 36 49%
Environmental Science 5 7%
Computer Science 5 7%
Physics and Astronomy 4 5%
Engineering 4 5%
Other 12 16%
Unknown 8 11%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 April 2012.
All research outputs
#5,733,368
of 22,769,322 outputs
Outputs from Journal of The Royal Society Interface
#1,484
of 3,051 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#26,895
of 94,108 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of The Royal Society Interface
#7
of 20 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,769,322 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,051 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 27.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 51% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 94,108 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 20 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its contemporaries.