Apparently the head tilt is a sound thing that helps them locate the position of sounds above/below them better. Humans are built different so we don’t need to do that to locate the source.
Or so I’ve heard. A real scientist is welcome to correct me.
Humans have the same issue, we just don’t have that same instinct for whatever reason.
Location is determined by the time-of-flight difference in the sound wave between each ear. So if something hits your left ear first, you know that it’s coming from the left.
You can’t do that when things are above/below.
You can’t do that when things are above/below.
You obviously have never been near a tree with a singing bird in it. You can definitely tell that the sound comes from above. That’s because the shape of the outer portion of the ear somehow funnels the sound in a way that makes it possible for the brain to determine the origin of the sound.
I am going to make a guess here, but I think humans might not even require this, we are farely unique (not unique per se, but it is rare i think (just primate family)) in our height class, higher than most quadraped stuff, but not high enough to be of the size of trees, so most noise either comes from above us, or below us, or at same height as us, and mostly heights coming from our own height usually would not be scary. And at small enough distances, we could easily tell source of noise from above or below (purely by being practised to know what source could produce what intensity at what distance) and at a longer distance where the difference would be small (relative to each other) we as may as well consider them same and treeat them same. All hypothesising, but I would guess we would loose the need quickly enough, considering tilting would mess up with our usuall visual processing, which we do much better, it would not be useful to hurt our better skill for something not useful
Not only does it help with hearing, but with sight as well. Two eyes looking horizontally at an object produce a dataset for the brain to process, but the depth perception is constrained to working in the horizontal plane. Tilting the head expands this into the third dimension, providing a lot more for the brain to work with.
Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Depth perception is in the Z (depth) axis. It’s neither in the X (horizontal) or Y (vertical) axis. You get the exact same stereo vision depth perception regardless of the orientation of your eyes.
Imagine a triangle with your eyes and the subject at a distance as the points. This triangle can be rotated around the long axis without changing anything. Tilting your head does nothing for visual depth perception.
For singular dots in space your argument would be valid, but real objects are often more complicated. If the eyes can’t reliably lock onto the same spot along the X-axis due to a repeating pattern or a complete lack of detail along said axis, tilting the head shifts the whole situation and allows the eyes to zero in on a fixed point to perceive depth. An extreme example: If you look at two horizontal featureless lines (offering no details along their length to lock onto, brushed metal railings for example) positioned one behind the other, running perpendicular to the field of view in the direction of the X-axis. The only way for depth perception to work here is to tilt the head to introduce a difference along the Y-axis. Repeating patterns with the right spacing (e.g. grids, lattices) in that same plane can also confuse depth perception, in which case the head tilt often helps.
Another (marginal) benefit of head tilting is the fact that as the head rotates, the eyes physically move, possibly revealing additional detail that may have been obstructed from the previous vantage points. All this for a much lower energy expenditure than the whole animal moving itself.
Oh and one thing that popped into mind from personal experience as I am writing this: In darkness tilting the head helps discern between shapes that are just lingering on your retinas after looking at a brighter thing earlier (rotates along with the eyes) vs. dim things that might actually be there right now (stays in the same orientation relative to the surroundings).
It literally might - the stereo audio sensing gets more vertical data (that the brain can combine with visual data into a more fully 3D understanding of things).
It’s the same how you (I mean eg cats) move your head from side to side while judging the distances or shapes of the objects slightly further away.
Just a sensor adjustment to literally receive more data on the subject/object from various pov-s.
They wouldn’t do this for far away objects.
They wouldn’t do this for far away objects.
LOL, I do! (checking parallax on a rifle scope)
Remembered this vid from a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oai7HUqncAA
I dont really like the dude but the videos are informative.
Yeah thats what i meant by “i dont like the dude” he has a military background too so its double cringe sometimes.
Yes, changing your point of view helps understanding things.
I do this too. I don’t know why
