Why is the chicken head still in the same position no matter how I move the chicken's body?

Because of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, the chicken's neck muscles will keep the chicken's head stable relative to the opposite position. This kind of vestibulo-ocular reflex is also possessed by humans, but our method is different from that of chickens. .

People discovered a long time ago that the head of a chicken is relatively stable. When the chicken walks, its head stretches out to cope with the shaking of walking. Even if we catch the chicken, Shake the chicken's body back and forth, and the chicken's head will remain still. Many photography enthusiasts even tie the camera to the head of the chicken, because this can prevent the image from shaking and take better photography. It’s funny to say that the anti-shake function of the chicken head is comparable to the stabilization function invented by us humans. tools, sometimes even better.

This stable support is the chicken's neck muscles. When the chicken's body moves, the chicken's head will make corresponding compensatory movements to keep the head relatively still. For example, when a chicken walks, the pattern is to keep its head still, with its body walking first, and then its head returning. This is the result of the chicken's eyes detecting changes in the visual field, transmitting information to the brain, and then the brain calculates compensation.

This ability to maintain absolute stability of the visual field during movement is called chicken head stability, and the principle is the vestibulo-ocular reflex. In fact, not only chickens, but we humans also have the ability to vestibulo-ocular reflex. This organ is located inside our ears and includes the semicircular canals, utricle and vestibular nerve. This set of vestibular stabilization devices can sense the spatial position of our heads, maintain stability during our movements, and regulate and coordinate our body movement trajectories.

No matter when the body is under pressure or moving, the field of vision of birds always locks their heads. So why are our human heads not as stable as chickens? The answer is no, what we move is our eyeballs, and the range of movement of our eyeballs is larger than that of chickens, so when the shaking is severe, our eyeballs can always maintain a locked field of view, while the range of movement of chickens' eyeballs is very small, so we need The neck and head are used to help fix it. If you don’t believe it, stare at an object and shake your head. Have you noticed it? Our eyes actually have a stabilizer function.