DOI: 10.5061/dryad.3j9kd51tm
title: Preprocessed behavioral data from: Volitional spatial attention is lateralized in crows

description: Like humans and many other animal species, birds exhibit left-right
 asymmetries in certain behaviors due to differences in hemispheric brain
 functions. While the lateralization of sensory and motor functions is well
 established in birds, the potential lateralization of high-level executive
 control functions, such as volitional attention, remains unknown. Here, we
 demonstrate that carrion crows exhibit more pronounced volitional
 (endogenous) attention for stimuli monocularly viewed with the left eye
 and thus in the left visual hemifield. We trained four crows on
 Posner-like spatial cueing tasks using informative cues to evaluate their
 volitional top-down attention. The crows detected cued targets using
 either the left or right eye. As a measure of volitional attention, we
 calculated reaction time differences for detecting targets that were
 correctly (validly) and incorrectly (invalidly) cued, separately for the
 left and right visual hemifields. We found that cued targets were detected
 more quickly and efficiently in the left visual field compared to the
 right visual field. Because the right hemisphere of the crow's brain
 processes information primarily from the left visual hemifield, these
 findings suggest that crows, like humans, exhibit superior executive
 control of attention in the right hemisphere of their brains.
description: # Preprocessed behavioral data from: Volitional spatial attention is
 lateralized in crows
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3j9kd51tm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3j9kd51tm) ## Description of the data and file structure This dataset contains all preprocessed behavioral data that is presented and analyzed in the corresponding manuscript. We trained four carrion crows (Corvus corone) in an operant conditioning chamber on two versions of a spatial cueing task and measured reaction times (**RT** [ms]) and target detection accuracies (Acc. [% correct]). Throughout the Task, Crows fixated their head position in a predefined area in front of a central monitor where experimental Stimuli were presented. On the side walls of the conditioning chamber, Stimuli were additionally presented on a Right- and a left-side screen. For all Crows, the Basic Task flow was as follows: Crows entered Fixation to start a Trial. Next, a spatial cue was briefly presented for 50 ms on one of the side screens (peripheral cue) or on one side of the front screen (central cue). Then, the cue disappeared followed by a variable delay of 50-1550 ms. Next, a faint Grey square, the target Stimulus, appeared on either the left or Right side screen. In the peripheral cue Task, Targets had one of three possible intensity Levels. In the central cue Task, target intensity was fixed as the lowest intensity from the peripheral Task. Upon target onset, Crows had to Report the visual target by Breaking head Fixation within 550 ms. A failure to respond within 550 MS was counted as an error Trial. Crows typically engaged in several hundreds of Trials per experimental session. In both the peripheral and the central cue Task, the spatial cue preceding the target was highly predictive of the upcoming target's Location (left or Right), thus motivating the Crows to allocate spatial Attention to the corresponding side. Behavioral effects of spatial Attention were assessed by comparing RTs across experimental conditions. Experimental conditions were defined by \- target side: Targets could appear on the left or Right side screen in a pseudo-randomized manner. \- varying **cue types**: A Valid Cue appeared on the same side as the subsequent target, thus correctly predicting target Location. An Invalid Cue appeared on the opposite side as the subsequent target, thus potentially misguiding the allocation of Attention. In the peripheral cue Task, 89% of spatial cues were valid. In the central cue Task, 87.5% of spatial cues were valid. Per session, data from trials with valid and invalid cues were averaged respectively. \- cue-target delays (stimulus-onset asynchrony: **SOA**, 100-1600 ms). SOA is defined as the elapsed time between cue onset and target onset. Trials with SOAs of 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1600 MS were presented in a pseudo-randomized manner and balanced across cue types and target sides. Crows 1 & 2 participated only in the peripheral predictive Cueing Task (n = 25;25 sessions), Crows 3 & 4 participated in both the peripheral (n = 28;26) and the central (n = 25;25) predictive Cueing task. Our analysis showed cue validity effects on RT across SOAs in both tasks, reflected in faster RTs for valid than for invalid cues. Cueing effects were based on the average RT differences between these cue types. The dataset presents the processed average RT per crow and session the calculated cueing effects were derived from, as well as the average RTs for left vs. right side targets with valid and invalid cues. Side-specific RTs were used to assess lateralization of cueing effects as described in the manuscript. RTs are reported for all experimental conditions analyzed (cue type x SOA, cue type x target side), as well as on average (SOAs pooled) for each cue type and session. The dataset also contains the number of experimental trials and correct responses per crow and session. All data analysis was performed in MATLAB (MathWorks Inc.) using custom-written scripts. ### Files and variables #### File: Behavioral\_Data\_Lateralization.xlsx **Description:** The processed behavioral measures are sorted by experimental conditions and subjects in a single Excel file. Data is given on an individual sheet for each crow per task. Crows 3 and 4 have 2 sheets each, 1 for the peripheral task and 1 for the central task. The file contains median RTs of all recorded sessions, both on average ("overall", cue type & SOAs pooled) and for the two cue types used ("valid", green; "invalid", red) at all SOAs tested and on average. The file also contains median RTs for the left and right target trials of all blocks analyzed (SOAs pooled). Cueing effects can be calculated from the session-wise differences between cue types (invalid - valid) by extracting the mean and standard error of the mean (SEM). ##### Variables * Sessions/Block: Behavioral data was pre-processed per experimental recording session for each individual Crow. One sessions corresponds to one day of data Acquisition. For the peripherl Task, One Block refers to a subset of Trials with the same target intensity from one session. - Valid/Invalid Cue: The corresponding tables are highlighted by a green (valid) / red (invalid) Header. These sections contain behavioral data per Crow per session, used to calculate RT differences across SOAs per crow. "median RT" gives the average RT across all Trials with the specified cue type within a session. "Mean Acc." gives the average percentage of correct Responses across all Trials with the specified cue type within a session, calculated as the Proportion of correct Responses over the sum of correct and error responses. "median RT [ms]" also gives the average RT per cue type and session, but split by SOAs (100-1600 MS). * LMM: Linear Mixed Model. This table contains the behavioral RT data [ms] per Crow used to calculate RT differences per target side. This data was also fit to a LMM as described in the manuscript. Per session and cue type, median RTs were calculated with SOAs pooled. "Left" indicates Trials with left Targets, "Right" indicates Trials with Right Targets. In the peripheral Task, each session was split into 3 subsets grouped by target intensity. - Overall: This table presents behavioral data per session pooled across all experimental conditions. "# Trials" gives the total sum of correct and error Trials per session. "# Hits" gives the number of correct Trials per session. "median RT [ms]" gives the average RT across all conditions per session. "mean Acc. [%]" gives the average Task Performance across all conditions per session. ## Access information Data was derived from the following sources: * This data was not derived from another source.