Shutterstock/Bachkova Natalia
Watching birds in the garden, their reaction times and alertness suggest that their brain processing speed is quicker than ours. Is this correct?
Simon Potier
Foucrainville, France
In general, the speed at which the eyes and brain acquire visual information over time – known as the temporal resolution of vision – is linked to the metabolic rates of an animal, its body mass and the type of food it forages.
Smaller organisms and those with higher metabolic rates perceive changes on shorter timescales.
Birds have high metabolic rates, so tend to be faster at discriminating details in a visual scene than humans.…
